


The Wind Goin' Over My Hand

by Ivy_Brooks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bully Dean, Canonical Character Death, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guilt, Human Castiel, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Pining, Victim Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 18:28:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6387790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Brooks/pseuds/Ivy_Brooks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College life is good to Dean. On campus in Santa Cruz, he's got the typical student life; booze, parties, good grades and great frat buddies.</p>
<p>It's all great - until he runs into an old...<i>something</i>, that is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>(Previously 'Sea Love')</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wind Goin' Over My Hand

**I**

Music is throbbing, the frat house is full of sweaty, naked skin, and Dean is tongue-deep in a beautiful girl he doesn't even know the name of. 

Life is _great_. 

He's known Santa Cruz was great for its nightlife (hell, he's lived here for three years, he'd have to have had his damn head in the ground to not know by now) but even with a gang of crazy frat buddies, he's never been to a party _quite_ like this. 

There's some dude leant on the patch of wall to his right, getting sucked off by a hulking bear of a man on his knees, two - no, _three_ \- girls had claimed the worn couch beneath the window, and Dean could count at least five nipples where the girls were starting to understand the definition of 'stripping', and the sight was something to behold. It was reaching orgy-tastic levels of sex in this place, dozens of people sucking and fucking the night away, and the girl he had pinned to a doorway sounded like she was enjoying it just as much as Dean was, grabbing his hand and roughly shoving it under her skirt and below the silky fabric of her underwear. 

Ten minutes, a slippery fumble with a condom and a lot of gasping later, he pulled away from her with a parting kiss, making a beeline for the kitchen to grab a refill. 

"Good time?" 

Dean grinned when an arm wrapped around his shoulder, Benny's stubble crashing into the side of Dean's face as the burly man stumbled. The guy had taken four straight shots of tequila not twenty minutes earlier, and the strain he was causing on Dean's muscles was plenty proof that the guy was too drunk to function. 

"You know it." He thudded Benny hard on the back, dragging him to the kitchen, winding past piles of people stretched out on the living room floor. Most were fucking, lots were doing shots, and some were tripping balls, sometimes all three at once, and Dean felt more at home than ever. 

Sure, maybe he shouldn't be drinking and boozing his weekends at Uni away, but... Yeah, actually, no, he should _definitely_ be doing that. That was basically the definition of a university student. There had to be a rule about the student right to party somewhere in the Bill of Rights, surely? And hell, as long as he passed his damn courses (which, by the way, he was doing _flawlessly_ ), there was no reason not to live it up. 

With a grunt and a shove, Dean hauled Benny to the kitchen - a large, messy, off-white room with broken blinds and a lanky dude passed out on the floor, lampshade-adorned head resting against the back door - and grabbed the nearest bottle of whatever he could find. He was buzzed and fuzzy, humming and giggling to himself as he took a swig of the booze, before handing it over to Benny and hoisting himself up to sit beside him. 

"Thanks broth-brother." Benny hiccuped, trying and failing to put the neck of the bottle to his lips about four or five times before actually drinking from it, leaving Dean a laughing mess where he sat. His brain had gotten to the point where everything was just so _hilarious_ , why _shouldn't_ he laugh? 

Benny glared at him, a drunken, misty-eyed thing, completely missing the coldness it required to be defined as a glare. "Why you have to be so damn - hic - so damn rude, Dean?" 

The slurring just made Dean laugh harder. "Ben, we're both smashed, and you sound like you're pumped with morphine, it's fucking hilarious." 

He ducks the sluggish, playful swing of Benny's arm and tumbles off of the table, running back into the sweaty living room and flipping the finger behind him as he goes. He collapses onto the (now suspiciously empty) couch, laugh still caught in his throat. Benny's great when he gets drunk. Has the reflexes of a sloth and the speech pattern of a five year old. They've been friends since Dean started studying (being roommates will do that), and watching Benny get hammered is still one of his favourite pastimes. 

Dean surveys his surroundings. He should probably haul himself and Benny home soon, before they went too far, like at Meg Master's party years before (he shuddered at the memory; spaghetti was hard to clean out of your bedsheets, he'd learned), but he can't stop his eyes from scanning the naked crowd, wondering if he could cram in one more orgasm before calling it a night. 

A girl and a guy are fucking avidly against a nearby wall, looked like they were nearly finished too, so Dean couldn't scramble in on that one; there are the two dudes from earlier, but they're locked together in another painful-looking contortion of hot limbs. Dean almost feels left out. All the occupants of the room look - well, _occupied_. He stands, stumbling a little as he made his way to the other side of the house, trying to chase as much tail as he possibly could. 

The next room over is obviously where the _real_ party's at. 

There's a crowd gathered, some laughing, most gawking or jerkin' it to whatever's going on at it's centre. Dean uses his drunken stumbling as an excuse to shove his way to the front and _damn_ , is his dick happy that he does. 

There are four downright God-like guys at the crowd's centre, butt naked, miles of toned skin available for anyone and everyone to see. The sights of most are set on the guy knelt at the other three men's feet, a cock in each hand, his mouth around the last. Dean's at an angle where he can see past two of the guys standing to the dark head of hair beyond and shit, this man - shit, this man is downright _dazzling_. 

Toned and tan (healthy tan, not "I just baked myself in a sunbed for eight hours" tan), this man has his plush, reddened lips wrapped around one guy's cock, whilst his strong, _large_ hands wrap delicately around the other two, head bobbing nice and slow, narrow wrists twisting back and forth in a smooth rocking rhythm. His eyes are closed, delicate smudges of dark lashes fanning against high cheekbones, a sprinkle of dark stubble splashed against a sharp jaw and damn, Dean - Dean's sure he recognises that fucking mouth, oh _God..._

As if sensing his presence, the man's eyes flicker open and meet his, and all Dean can feel in his core was the colour _blue_. 

Blue like the shoreline on the days Dean goes for unplanned runs past the Natural Bridges, sunlight kissing the water; blue like the cornflowers he sees nearly every day at the florists between his house and the local bar, blue like - blue like something familiar and stinging and _old_. 

The show is over for Dean then, however, 'cause he feels a hand on his shoulder and he turns, only to find a pale and shaky Benny looking at him with watery eyes and oh _shit_ \-- 

They only just make it outside the house when Benny hurls all over Dean's shoes. 

"No more parties." He grumbles, grabbing Benny's arm and stumbling down the road, humid Californian air suffocating him as he goes, wincing as his vomit-sticky socks drag against his ankles. 

Definitely no more parties. 

\--- 

The blue-eyed mystery man doesn't pop into Dean's head until at least a week after the Benny-Barf fiasco, and then suddenly, it abruptly becomes the _only_ thing to pop into Dean's head after the Benny-Barf fiasco. 

Drunk as he was, he knows he hadn't imagined it. That... _pull_. He'd known that guy, he was sure of it. 

Those eyes... 

Those eyes couldn't be forgot in all of history. But no matter how many times Dean picked his brain, he couldn't match a name, an occupation, hell, not even a fucking _feeling_ with that face. It was bugging the hell out of him. Information that was just on the tip of his tongue and yet he still couldn't reach it. 

He asks Benny about the guy too, but anything Benny remembers from that night just brings up a swirl of nausea and a reluctance to drink, which is both funny and frustrating - Dean doesn't get his answers, but he can make Benny sprint to the nearest toilet bowl on a whim, which provides some A grade entertainment for the next few days. 

Fall semester comes in and sweeps him off his feet soon enough though, forcing him back into the blissful, distracting routine of work, study, procrastination, more work and all-nighters. He calls home often enough, checks the old man is still alive and kicking (always). His mom always sounds happy over the phone, so he interprets that as a good sign, and the times when he speaks to Sam scare him, 'cause the little shit's voice is getting deeper by the day. If he's taller next time they see each other, Dean's gonna take an axe to his kneecaps 

Living away from his family used to be so strange, but now that he's twenty-one, he's kind of gotten used to it. After the many succinct warnings from his old high school friend, Ash, about Santa Cruz ("Students, students everywhere.") Dean had upped sticks and enrolled at UC, studying Engineering as his major. Being a car mechanic was great and all, but he wanted to go above and beyond, maybe even start repairing things like US Navy Ships and helicopters and army tanks; just, moving beyond cars in general seemed like a good step forwards, so he'd taken a stab at it and hey, what d'you know, he's pretty good at it. 

Thanksgivings spent at the Winchester household are still a necessity, however (mom would kill him if he didn't come home at least once a year), so that gives him a nice, annual break from the constant study/party that was Santa Cruz. His boss, Ellen, was always kind enough to give him Thanksgiving off. Her bar, the Roadhouse, always raked in way too much cash from the student population anyways; more than they knew what to do with. Ellen insisted on paying him during his off time too, which he refused every time, despite that fact that the money still mysteriously ended up in his wallet. Ellen was a sly old bitch. 

All in all, it was a good life. Busy, but good. His frathouse is pretty crowded (it's off-campus, so really, it's not technically a frat house, but psh. Technicalities.) They're all guys he likes, even if the dishes never get done and there's a constant pile of laundry taller than Dean stacked up by the washing machine. It all gets done... eventually. Usually by the loser of a drinking showdown ( _coughBennycough_ ). The area's alright, not the greatest, but nowhere near as crime-riddled as the neighbourhoods at the mouth of the river. Doesn't stop prostitutes being brought in every now and then, though - Dean doesn't like to dwell on that. 

Instead, he tries to dwell on the ten thousand word essay he's currently supposed to be drafting. The written part of his course had never been the easiest. Mathematics, physics, _numbers_ \- all of that was simple. Chunks of information that he could calculate and sort into tidy, neat piles. It was the English part, the _wording_ , that got him. _Qualititative data_. Grammar and 'flow' were beyond him, honestly. That might be partly because of the dyslexia, but he'd never let that get the better of him before. Vonnegut had been no match. 

"Dean-o!" 

Dean snaps his head up from his screen as a blonde swish of hair pokes it way around his doorway, a rubbery smirk following. Dean's stomach drops into the floorboards. 

Call it a Pavlovian response, but whenever Gabe makes himself known, shit is around the corner, so tread lightly. He remembers the last time he'd let his guard down around the demonic little short-ass; his room had ended up coated in an inch-thick layer flour that had taken weeks to clean. It'd looked like a bakery for _days_. Dean still finds piles of white powder in his cupboard draws, and he shudders each time he unearths evidence of that dark, dark time. 

Cautious, Dean swivels away from his computer, hands brushing the keyboard as he goes, eyeing the grinning face in the door with barely-hidden fear. 

"'Sup, Gabe?" 

Gabriel smirks, sensing his prey's trepidation, and Dean waits for the sucker punch, the tar and feathers, _anything_ \- and is simultaneously relieved and suspicious when the shorter man pulls out a plastic-wrapped pack of prime steak out from behind his back. 

"Up for a barbie?" He asks, a sorry excuse for an authentic Aussie accent lolloping off his tongue. Dean winces. 

"Sure," Dean shrugs, "If you can get a better damn accent." To which, he gets a cold face-full of prime steak to the face. He springs up to lob it right on back, but Gabriel's already darted away from the door, laughing his little ass off. "Asshat!" Dean hollers down the stairs. 

"Last one to the beach gets clean-up duty!" Somebody yells from below, sounds like Zeke, and that's how the streets of Santa Cruz are met with the thundering feet of half a dozen frat boys sprinting to the coastline. 

\--- 

The barbecue, as it turns out, does not turn into a fiery disaster. 

Chuck ends up on clean-up duty (for the eighth time that month), and Dean and the rest of them fry up some great burgers and steaks. Him and Zeke toss about a frisbee for a while, and at some point the t-shirts come off and they abandon Chuck in the grove in favour of ducking out in the ocean. Samandriel \- poor guy, smallest one in their group - gets shoved headfirst into an oncoming wave more than once, but he takes it in stride, a grin on his face and laughter in his chest. 

Here, Dean belongs. It's never a feeling he's felt more strongly than when he'd moved here. Back home, there'd been so many expectations to live up to, so many roles to play. The jock, the older brother, the bad boy, the player. Here, with this group of idiots and rock pools, he could just be Dean. Engineer and excellent barbecue-er. 

They chill out in the tiny grove of eucalyptus trees and eat until the sun is sinking low in the sky and Dean feels like he's gonna burst. He dreads going home to that son of a bitch essay, but he doesn't even have an excuse to stay out when a fat raindrop hits him square on the nose. Cali isn't exactly known for its rain, and it's just as much of a surprise to the others as it is to Dean, judging by their confused skyward glances. Trust the weather to put Dean's wistful ideas of procrastination on hold before they've even began to bloom. 

Gabriel - ever the dramatic one - sprints towards the disposable grill and snags the last few, cooling steaks off of it. 

"We must preserve the survivors!" He yells, before shoving one into his mouth and flapping another into the air. Dean rolls his eyes, and then the rain really starts to come down. 

They pack up quick, the group starting to migrate back home in one big, sluggish drag, and Dean's about to follow when he hears the crashing waves through the grove, and screw it, his t-shirt's already soaked, he may as well go for a walk along the shoreline before he calls it a day. 

The sky is a beautiful mix; grey rain clouds above, clear orange sky beyond. It creates the faintest shimmer of a rainbow in the distance, and Dean shivers at the sight. 

The Natural Bridges loom as his eyes rake over them in the distance, black rock shining with rain water. The ocean laps at his bare toes, friendly on his skin, as if it's saying hello, and he simply stands there and accepts the greeting, watching the expanse of the world before him, the breath of the earth as it pushes and pulls the water across the sand. Sea breeze rakes through his hair, and his heart settles, content, in his chest. 

For a college student, he's pretty damn peaceful. 

He opens his eyes and continues in his tracks, only stopping when he eyes a figure sat about fifty feet away. 

It's a man, with dark hair, kneeling in the shallows, staring out at the never-ending drop of the ocean. His baggy, once-white shirt sticks to him, a swathe of waterlogged grey clinging to broad shoulders. He stands out against the dark background of the rock. Dean keeps walking, drawn to the sight. The man's face catches a rare ray of sunset light breaking through the clouds, and it's a sign, it's got to to be, because Dean _recognises_ him. 

It's the guy from the party - the guy with the too blue eyes and the beautiful, gorgeous hands. 

"Hey!" He barks over the roar of the tide, without really thinking it through - this guy is a stranger, it's getting late, and Dean doesn't know if he wants to be disturbed by some jackass who saw him take on three dicks at once at a frat party not two weeks ago. 

The man's head snaps up, but he doesn't move, eyes narrowing into stormy blue slits as Dean sidles up next to him, ankle-deep in cool water, a little breathless. 

"Hey," he offers a lopsided grin; the rain has slowed by now, drizzling a lazy pattern of droplets against Dean's skin, "Mind if I, uh - sit with you?" 

If possible, the guy's narrow even further. "Yes." He says simply, causing Dean to snap his head back in affronted surprise. "I do." 

Dean sits down anyway. He's never been good at obeying requests. The water makes a tingle rush up his spine. The guy rolls his eyes and huffs. 

"You were giving me the illusion of choice," he states, more to himself than Dean, staring back out at the horizon; back into the sun, "How thoughtful of you." 

Dean's brow furrows - he can't tell if the guy is a snob or just plain tripping balls. 

"Sorry, dude, it's just - jeez, I don't know, you just..." The guy doesn't give any hint that he cares, much less that he's listening, "...look familiar." Dean finishes lamely. The stranger gives him the side-eye. 

"If you're here for the same treatment I gave those men, I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn you down." Dean's too distracted by the gravel of his voice to catch up with what being said to him, "I don't --" 

"No!" Dean all but yelps, holding up a placating hand. Waves thicken around his bent knees. "Jesus, no! I just - fuck, I thought I knew you, okay? I mean, sure, I saw you at the party but --" 

"Then what do you want?" 

"Your name?" Dean blurts, half confused, half argumentative. This guy is so bone-achingly familiar now that it's like an itch under Dean's skin. It's there, he knows it is, he just can't get it. There's something wrong, something different. 

Blue Eyes squints suspiciously at Dean, his head tilting in a way that reminds the taller man of the old cat that his neighbours had kept back home in Lawrence, a scruffy little black thing with a knack for leaving scratches in the woodwork of their front door and putting sneezes in Dean's nose 

"...Jimmy." The man answers carefully, he _lies_ carefully and Dean snorts. 

"That's not your name." 

"Oh?" There's an edge to the man's voice, lilting and dangerous, like the quick pluck of piano keys before the climax to an old horror movie, and Dean shivers. "Then what _is_ , pray tell? What will you decide to name me? Because if you can't think of anything now then I suggest you _leave me alone."_

_"Just leave me alone!"_

_Dean whacks the kid's stack of books out of his arms, grabs the weedy little bastard by the throat and slams him into a wall of lockers. Little Cassy's got his blond hair pulled back again and gee, doesn't that just look stupid?_

_"Do you dye this shit or what?" He asks roughly, yanking on the kid's pony tail. Castiel yelps, babyface contorted into a grimace of pain and Dean laughs at how pathetic he looks. He laughs when he throws the kid back down to the ground too, and for good measure, he kicks the shorter boy hard in the stomach, leaving him a crippled, snotty mess on the floor of the empty hallway. Dean's gotta go to class, but there's always more fun to be had tomorrow._

"Oh my God." Dean breathes, back in the present, where the waves licking at him are suddenly far too cold to be pleasant anymore. " _Castiel._ " 

That's it, that's _right_ , because the guy's eyes - beautiful, endless oceanic eyes - widen, and before Dean can even begin to pull his chattering brain out of the mud, Castiel has staggered up and started a rough pace towards the shore, angry splashes caressing his ankles as he goes. Dean stumbles to his feet. 

"Castiel!" He calls, voice struck out by the waves. He's fast though, even faster with the rush of regret and guilt foaming in the back of his throat. "Fuck - Cas --" 

He reaches out, grabs Castiel's shoulder - and is promptly flipped onto the ground. 

Breath is squeezed out of him, like toothpaste from a tube. A knee pins him to the shore, righteous fury and pounding strength keeping him there as Castiel kneels over him, broad and predatory, a panther stung by seawater; Dean, a bug under a microscope, Castiel, the probing, all-powerful scientist that could dissect him at any moment. 

"I _left_ Lawrence!" Castiel shouts - God he _shouts_ , so loud and brash and _desperate_. He looks crazed, pelted with rain and framed by rolling grey clouds and beams of distant sun. He looks at Dean with hurt and anger, wrath so strong that Dean quivers where he lays. "I left that godforsaken place and now you - are you _determined_ to make my life a living hell, Dean Winchester?" 

Breathless, Dean doesn't answer. There's nothing he can possibly say. The shit he did the Cas. Shit.... the fucking trauma he put that kid through. From middle school upwards he'd been Cas' personal jailer, throttling him, abusing him, hell, even _groping_ him once or twice. The memories come crashing back, memories of the person Dean used to be, memories of the person Cas used to be, and now, knowledge of the person Dean had created and oh _God_ \- 

"If you so much as _look_ at me again." Castiel threatens, a bite in his voice and pain in his eyes as he presses his knee down harder. Dean's ribs give a warning creak in response. "I will not hesitate to pay you back. In _full_. Do you understand?" 

Dean nods, and oxygen rushes back into him at an alarming speed as Castiel stands, striding away, storm billowing around him as he goes. 

Dean feels sick, head spinning out of control with the sepia-tinted images his minds providing him. Fuzzy tapes of him wrapping a hand in Castiel's once light hair and shoving his face into a toilet, feeling the crack of his nose under his knuckles, feeling the swell of his ass with the palm of his hand against a shower-room locker - an assault of god-awful, sickening memories that make Dean want to throw up every single thing he'd eaten that day. 

He lies on that stretch of beach until the sky turns dark and the incoming tide starts to tickle his toes. 

So much for peaceful. 

**II** ****

Shower water pounds his back in a steady rhythm. He shoves Gabe's rubber ducky off of the shampoo shelf in an act of defiance. It gives an undignified squeak as it falls to the floor. Dean grabs his lotion, slapping it on in a heavy dosage, trying to lose himself in his own touch. 

Meeting Castiel again isn't something he's ever planned on doing. Clear as day now, he remembers it all, such a large chunk of his childhood that he's locked in the most isolated corner in his mind, purely because of the sick dregs of guilt the memories drag up with them. 

To face Castiel now, with the knowledge of what he'd done... God, if there's a level that surpassed guilt, Dean's at it. If he so much as _conjures_ that babyface, lighter-haired version of Castiel up in his mind, it feels like razors dragging up his insides. If the roles were flipped, and he'd been the one to meet Castiel on that long, lonely stretch of beach? Shit, Dean would've beat the crap out of him, no holds barred. Already, that proves how much better of a person Castiel is. How much _kinder_ he is, than Dean. 

And to think, he'd tormented someone so damn tolerant. What the fuck was _wrong_ with him? 

He rinses and the shuts the shower off, hanging his head as he leans against the grubby tile wall, chest pushing out one endless, weary sigh. Long shift at the Roadhouse tonight. He doesn't know if he can do it, with his mind so occupied, but he needs the paycheck and he doesn't want to rack up another reason for being an awful human being. The list for that was endless, he certainly didn't want "missed shift at Roadhouse" added to it. 

The water drips in tiny clicks against the tub, and a flash of his old high school shower room tears through Dean's head. He pushes the thought away with a sick lurch, and tumbles out of the shower. 

Towelling off his hair and dragging on a pair of jeans, he ducks out of the house, narrowly avoiding the green water balloon that flies over his head as he passes Gabe's open door. 

\--- 

Hallowe'en hits Santa Cruz just as the temperatures start to finally drop. Every now and then, Dean trawls the shoreline, some half-assed notion formed in the back of his head as he looks for a dark-headed figure in the waves. He gives it up soon, however, because thinking about Cas makes his gut sway and his stomach twist itself into knots. 

Pumpkin-themed _everything_ starts washing up about a week before the 31st, whilst the tide of tourists finally washes out, meaning less tips for Dean and more breathing space. He's not sure whether to want tips and crowds or not, because crowds get rowdy and they're a bitch to handle, but the money's good and plenty. Doesn't matter in the end, though, because the amount of people that come down from San Jose at the weekends nearly makes up for the wads of tips that he's missing out on. 

A dish cloth swirls around his fingers as he cleans out a tall glass at the bar. Round and round in loops around his fingers. Dean hasn't seen Castiel since their beach debacle, and it irritates him no end; he just wants to find a way to make things right. 

Vaguely, he lets himself wonder what Castiel is doing here. He's changed so much, looks so different, and he'd left Lawrence so long ago... Does he study here? Work here? Have family here? How come Dean hasn't seen him in all the time they'd lived here? 

Had Dean been so awful that it'd scarred Castiel permanently? 

Troubled at the thought of having such a negative impact on someone else's life, he swallows around the thick lump in his throat, watching the dish cloth. Round and round, like the flush of water in a toilet bowl. Damn it, why had he been such an asshole kid? There were no excuses, right? Nothing to validate his behaviour; his family were great, they still are. He himself hadn't ever been harassed. No anger issues, daddy issues - those were like, bully tropes, right? A check list for being an A grade asshole. Sure, he's better _now_ \- at least, he hopes - but there has to be a explanation. People don't just beat up on other people for no apparent goddamn reason. 

Memories smack him upside the head, as if to say _no, there hadn't been a reason, you were just born to be a dickwad_. 

His brain might be right, he believes, for one horrifying moment. He remembers the way he'd pushed around the weedy Castiel kid, called him a _"faggot"_ and a _"queer"_ and all the rest of it; pretty fuckin' ironic, since Dean had figured out he himself liked cock a _long_ time ago, thanks to a tumble in the sheets with a hot freshman that he still couldn't remember the name of back in his sophomore year. 

The fuzzy blip of a stronger, brighter memory yanks at him, begging to be acknowledged, and he pushes it way with deliberate force. 

The dish cloth still goes round, his wrists turning as if on cylinders, automatic. He can hear the bar filling out behind him, and he wonders if Cas has ever come here, maybe on one of Dean's nights off? Maybe that's why they've never seen each other, why Dean has never gotten the chance to apologise... 

"Dean!" 

A hand smacks him upside the head, and the glass nearly falls from his fumbling hands as he spins around. Ellen is there, a tray of drinks in one hand and a notepad and pen in the other, a fierce expression on her face. 

"I ain't payin' you to stand around and look pretty, boy." she dumps the tray into Dean's hand and nods across the bar, and he grins on automatic, a defensive reflex he's perfected over the years. 

"Coulda fooled me." He winks, "Everybody wants a piece of this _fine_ ass, Ellen, you know it." 

He waggles his tongue for good measure. Ellen looks like she wants to punch him, years of working together only just making her refrain. Dean smiles even wider, taking the victory in his stride. "Table 9!" She barks at him, "And hurry up. They don't look as drunk as they ought to be." 

Ellen would be a good match for Dean's Uncle Bobby, he reckons as he speeds around tables and slides the tray down. She doesn't take shit from anybody and the last time she'd caught Dean taking shots on shift she'd whacked him so hard that he still had the bruise to show for it. Bobby would love her. 

His mind is kept good and occupied for the rest of the night, doing what he's good at, mixing drinks and pouring shots, even if he _is_ a little off his flirtation game, completely missing a clever little wink a young sorority girl gives him at the bar and only realising after she's turned back to her table. 

After pouring out a few rounds of shots for a group of guys who are clearly underage, a couple of smoke breaks, and the mopping up of four or so tables later, Ellen let's him call it a night around eleven, and Dean thinks that this thing with Cas must be screwing with his head noticeably, because if _Ellen's_ taking pity on him, then it has to be serious. 

\--- 

"What the heck is up with you lately?" 

Dean rolls his eyes. He's getting fed up of people asking him that. 

"Nothin', Charles, I'm just tired." 

"Nuh-uh!" Charlie shakes her head, waggling her finger at him from where she sits at his side in their lecture hall. Their teacher is droning on about quantum mechanics, voice brittle and flat, and Dean's head is slipping down his palm - or at least it was, until Charlie started chirping at him like an over-excited budgie. "No way you can write this off Dean, you've been moping for days! I can _tell_." 

He swivels his head around and arches a single, disbelieving eyebrow. "You can tell? _Really._ " 

Her red head of hair nods fiercely, and Dean wishes he could have confidence in himself like that. "Yeah, I'm like a bloodhound when it comes to these things So come on Deanie, what's up?" 

"Nothing, Charlie. Drop it." 

"Like a _bloodhound_." She pushes his shoulder, and she really isn't gonna let this drop is she? "What is it? Family troubles? Too much workload? Meet somebody? 

Something must shift in his expression, because Charlie's mouth drops open with an exaggerated inhale, scandalised. "Oh my _Tolkien_ , you _met_ someone." 

"Charlie --" 

"No _way._ " Charlie jiggles in her seat, the same excitable jiggle she does when she starts on her ranting tirades about Samwise or Hermione, "No way the cold, badboy _Dean Winchester_ has met someone. Holy crap Dean, who is it?" 

Someone beside them coughs pointedly at Charlie's raise in volume, so she ducks down and whispers, "Who is it, Dean? Anyone I know?" 

On a list of things Dean never wants to discuss, this is right up there, battling for top place with politics and the death of John Bonham (God rest his soul). He ducks a little lower in his seat, praying that he won't be attacked with more questions. 

"He's just some guy I used to know, alright?" He hisses back in reluctant answer, "I met him again down at the beach like a month ago and we have a - a history, I guess. Didn't go down so well." 

"Do you like him?" 

With gorgeous looks and a fire in his eyes, how could Dean not like him? "No." 

" _Liar_." 

"I can't like him!" There was no right, Dean wasn't _allowed_ to be infatuated with an ex-victim who he'd so royally screwed up, "I _can't_ , Charlie, please, drop it." 

"But _why?_ " 

"'Cause I used to bully the damn kid, alright?" 

His voice carries out so loudly across the hall that several people, including the lecturer, stop to stare at them. Dean's face burns. Stupid Charlie and her stupid interrogation techniques. He clicks his pen with as much anger as he can muster, and scribbles down notes in silence for the rest of the lecture. 

\--- 

Thanksgiving passes by in a blur of travelling, family and stress. The meal is so, so worth it though, even if he has to deal with Sam's gigantor self looming next to him at the table. The bitch has finally done it, finally gotten to that extra _inch_ where Dean has to look up to meet his eyes, and he lords it over his older brother dog with a bone. 

Nonetheless, he spends a happy week at home, kicking Sam's ass at Mario and helping out his dad with the Impala. Once Dean's finished at uni, his dad's promised to gift her to him, and Dean's almost looking forward more to that than he is his own degree. 

When he's back in Santa Cruz, all's going pretty smoothly. The Roadhouse is doing well, he's bobbing along at a steady average in his course, and he rakes in a little extra when he plays guitar at various open mic nights across the Boardwalk. His housemate are their usual, boistrous selves, and live in general is pretty great. 

Until John dies. 

Heart attack. A blockage in an artery. The doctors say there was nothing they could've done. 

Christmas is forgotten within the Winchester family in favour of Dean's father's funeral. It's a small, family-only ceremony. They bury him next to his mother. Mary cries, Sam cries, and for the first time in his life, Dean feels truly, truly numb to the world. Death can make all of life's problems seem trivial, and John's death is no exception. 

It's a bitch when he has to leave his family again, but Mary insists, telling him the getting his education was 'what John would have wanted' and really, Dean couldn't bring himself to fight a statement like that from his weepy, doe-eyed mother. 

So Dean goes back to Santa Cruz in time for New Year, and promptly uses the occasion as an excuse to get hammered. 

He buys two bottles of the purest, cheapest vodka he can find, as this was a situation that even his old friend Jack Daniels couldn't smooth over. Already buzzing, he takes them down to the dark strip of beach just beyond the lighthouse, and digs his heels into the ground to carve out a sloppy curve in the wet sand for him to sit in. Then, he drinks. 

He drinks until the tears start, drinks until they stop, because John Winchester is _dead_. 

There's never any warning, never any bog-standard explanation for how to deal with grief. Different people feel different things. For Dean, it's an angry breed of bitterness. Bitterness for a good man who'd been snatched away too early, who hadn't lived to see either of his sons with a family, hadn't lived to see Sammy graduate high school. 

Hadn't lived the life an ex-marine and good father _deserved_. 

It's an injustice, and Dean's abruptly faced with the fact that, one day, _everyone_ dies. Ellen will die. Bobby will die. Mom will die. Sam will die. Selfishly, he prays that he goes before Sam, because he doesn't think he would be able to handle his little brother's death before his own. 

The water looks beautiful at this time of night, inky black and oozing over the shore in never-ending ripples, kissing his feet with cold lips. He leaves his empty bottles on the shore, and stumbles into the ocean's waiting arms on a whim of his liquefied brain, letting the chill of the water wash over the choking ache in his chest. 

_John Winchester didn't have to die._

Water laps at his throat, and that's when he drunkenly realizes it's high tide, and his feet are no longer touching the sea bed. 

Panic seizes him all at once, limbs striking out with the need for dry land, to get back. In the distance he can see the light house, but nothing more; no people or boats in the distance, and the fear growing in him makes him flail in the water, arms wind-milling desperately in an attempt to get back to the shore. But the strip of purple sand is slowly getting further and further away, and that's when the realisation hits him. 

Dean is going to drown out here. Another death that doesn't have to happen. 

Just like dad. 

That notion makes him fight harder, rebelling against the waves, but it's hard to rebel against anything when you're encased in it. Cold seeps into him and he starts feeling the strain on his muscles; both intoxicated and physically exhausted will never be a good combination, and he proves that now, a salty wave crashing into the side of his face as the current tries her hardest to claim another body for her own. 

Belatedly, he wonders if Mary will be able to survive the death of both her eldest son and her husband within the same month. The thought of her, crying on her bedspread after burying an empty coffin for him, makes Dean feel sick. 

Why is he so _selfish_? Why is he so damn _stupid_? This would surely _break_ her. Dean would be responsible for killing his mother all the way down to the core. 

And Sam - oh God, _Sammy_... 

His muscles lock and freeze, and his face is wet with something other than seawater as he takes his last breath and the world turns dark. 

**III**

Heaven, Dean concludes, is a nice comfy bed. 

Or Hell. Dean shouldn't be so presumptuous. 

With grunt and a sore ache squeezing around his muscles, Dean sits up and looks around. 

A pretty bedroom greets him, painted shell white and dimly glowing as sunlight attacks the mothballed polka dot curtains drawn over the windows. A dark wooden bookshelf that's seen better days stands in the corner, filled with the spines of many well-worn titles. An assortment of gemstones litters every surface, giving off a hippy-dippy vibe that makes Dean question the possibility of a weed stash nearby. There's a dark bedside table to his left, a cracked vase sat on it, and belatedly, he realizes there's no door. Just a creamy archway and hallways beyond, like the villas you see in Spain or Brazil. 

Did he wash up in South America or something? 

Pain cuts through vague, dirty thoughts surrounding Brazilian festival girls, and he stumbles out of bed to find that he's - well, he's butt naked. He looks down at himself, bare as the day God made him, save for the massive, purpling bruise settled across his sternum. Blindly, he wonders if this is one of those "think of clothes and you'll have them" deals, but he's pretty sure he's not dead at this point. Instead, he swipes a robe hanging from the wardrobe and tugs it on, surrounding him in a swathe of silky, slightly too-tight blue. His eyes scan the room, searching for some sign of another living person, but he finds nothing but a glass of water and aspirin left by the doorway, both of which he gulps down greedily. 

The water touches his lips and crushing, the weight of the night before lands on his shoulder. Dark, dark skies, endless inky liquid at his throat, and then... nothing. 

Somebody pulled him out. 

The bruise on his sternum suddenly makes sense. Someone _pushed_ the water out of his lungs. The weight of John's death hits him all over again, and he refuses to acknowledge the stinging behind his eyeballs, pushing onwards to find out where the fuck he is 

Silent, save for the slapping sounds his bare feet make against the wooden floor (so not silent at all, dammit), he creeps out into the hallway, eyes narrowing into slits as light - so much _light_ \- assaults him. 

He's in an open plan place, a living room and kitchen spread out before him. Gemstones seem to be a theme, lining every available surface and glinting prettily in the sunlight. A futon is sprawled opposite the kitchen, an assortment of threadbare cushions strewn haphazardly across it, stuffing bursting from one too many splits in the fabric. A decent sized tv sits in front, along with a low-legged coffee table that has too many dried mug-rings and not enough coasters. Glass patio doors and floor-to-ceiling windows line one whole side of the house, and beyond that - God, beyond that is just endless, brightly-lit shoreline, tufts of dry grass shifting into rolling sand before meeting the cool blue of the ocean. At most, even from where he's standing inside, the beach is just a two-hundred foot walk away. 

It's beautiful. 

Confused, he checks for signs of life, or something to wear beside this skimpy damn dressing gown, at least. He strides over to the patio doors, and watches with fascination as they slide soundlessly open beneath his hands, welcoming a gentle breeze in that whips in through his hair, pine decking meeting his feet as he steps outside. There's a rise on the other side of the house, a winding trail going up and over sandy dunes, and if Dean strains, he can hear the tell-tale sounds of civilisation; hell, if he _squints_ , he can _just_ about see the top of the lighthouse. 

"You're up." 

Dean turns, eyes squinting in the onslaught of sun, and he feels his heart thump out of time when he sees Castiel sat, Indian-style, at the corner of the house, and Dean curses, because the universe really does just fucking _hate_ him, doesn't it? 

Castiel is leaning against the outer wall, draped in another baggy shirt and white-washed jeans that have a sewed patch on one knee. They've been hurriedly rolled up to his calves, revealing slim ankles and bare feet, bony toes dusted with white sand. A canvas sits before his crossed legs, and Dean's pain-addled brain takes a moment to realise it's not a cigarette, but a paintbrush that Cas is holding between his slender fingers. 

"Yeah." Dean croaks, watching in awe as Castiel unfolds himself, slipping to his feet with an easy grace. "Uh. Guess I am." 

Castiel slides wordlessly past him and into the house. Dean can do nothing but follow. 

"Do you require a phone?" Castiel asks, stout and to the point, making his way over to the kitchenette in order to sort through a draw there. His back is kept to Dean. "I have a spare." 

Dean stares. He stares until Castiel has no choice but to turn around at the lack of response, head cocking in the same cat-like way as before, curious and analysing, as if Dean is a particularly brave mouse. 

"What?" Castiel demands, a bite to his voice. Dean draws himself up into his shoulders, preparing for - shit, he doesn't even _know_. 

"I - what happened?" He asks, bewildered. Why here? Why _Cas_ of all people? 

Castiel blinks owlishly, like Dean's mere _existence_ is a try on his patience. "Idiotically, you went out into deep waters, intoxicated and at night. I happened to be out boating." Castiel _boats_? Whoa. He rounds the breakfast island, stoic and flat and _mesmerising_ , "Can you place those two factors together, or do I have to do that too? For the sake of your imbecilic-mind, of course." 

The scathing words slide right past Dean, melted butter past his ears, because all that he can understand right now is that Castiel _saved_ him. _Him_. From _drowning_. 

"Why?" He asks, mouth hanging open on a well-oiled hinge. He feels so dumb but he _needs_ to know. "Why didn't you just... _leave_ me out there?" 

"Because I didn't want to be convicted of manslaughter." Castiel snaps back, quick as lightning with such a deadpan reply, and Dean might've laughed if he thought that the man wasn't joking. "Now do you require a phone or not?" 

There's an ancient little Nokia being held out to him, and he takes it with trembling fingers. 

"Tell whoever's picking you up to wait for you on West Cliff Drive, near the lighthouse." Castiel says tartly, before slipping around Dean and through the patio doors once more, leaving Dean rooted to the spot, mouth hanging open and dressed in nought but a silky blue dressing gown. 

Numb, Dean punches in Gabe's number and relays the info, putting an end to the man's incessant questioning with a rushed " _It's a long story_." before hanging up and placing the phone gingerly on the breakfast island, as if the whole place will shatter apart if he puts it down too hard. As if the whole house will smash like glass around him and he'll open his eyes to never-ending blue and the drag of ocean waves. 

Maybe this is all just an oxygen deprived hallucination before his inevitable death. Dean can only hope. 

\--- 

Castiel is outside again, painting, whilst Dean fidgets and waits for Gabe to call back. The bruise throbs where his racing heart pounds against it, and Dean tries not to think about the fact that they've exchanged bruises now - and the one Cas has given him wasn't done for the fun it, but to _save Dean's life_. 

Dean's more guilt than human, at this point. 

He paces warily around the house, eyeing the scenery, a displaced effort to distract his chirping mind from those darker, forbidden thoughts. There's hand-painted canvases strewn up on walls and spread haphazard across shelves that Dean hadn't noticed at first glance. Paint pots litter every surface, as common as the gemstones, wet paint brushes drooling their colours onto whatever shelf they've been left on. With a sting that feels suspiciously like pity, Dean notices that there are no pictures of anyone else lying around. There's only one mug on the coffee table, only one chequered tea towel slung over a counter, only one dent in the futon before the tv. 

Castiel is alone. 

Castiel has been alone for a long, long time, it looks like. Dean wonders if that's because of him. 

Unsure of whether or not he's allowed to be surveying Castiel's home in such a manner, Dean tiptoes his way back outside. Cas doesn't even acknowledge Dean's presence as the taller man looks over his shoulder, painting on like he'd much prefer if Dean wasn't there at all. Dean can't help but agree. . 

The image on the canvas swells up beneath Cas' hands, begging to be looked upon, and Dean's eyes widen on automatic. "Holy shit." 

Castiel looks up from his canvas and squints at him. "How astute of you." He grumbles, turning back to the stretch of beach before them, correcting a tiny detail of his painting with the white-tipped paintbrush in his hand. Dean can only gawk. 

"I never knew you could paint." Dean crumbles to his knees beside the other man, making sure to keep a good metre of space between them. Cas has painted the whole stretch of beach before them, except - except he's done it in the _negative_ , blacks where whites should be and visa versa. The whole effect is chilling. Dean's mouth runs before he can stop it. "Do you study at UC?" 

"No." 

"Huh. You'd fit right in." So not a student? Cas actually freakin' _lived_ in this place? Dean wonders where he got the money to do that. The Novak family hadn't exactly been known for its riches back in Lawrence. "So...this place is all yours, huh?" 

"Yes." 

Not big on answers. Dean can deal with that. He can talk for years about nothing. It's awkward, but then again, it would be strange if it was anything but. Trying to talk to the kid you used to bully is always gonna be a tough experience - especially if said kid is ridiculously attractive and wants to rip out your spleen with his _teeth_. 

"It's beautiful." Dean blurts. Castiel's brow furrows, but he still refuses to look at Dean. "The house, I mean." Dean clarifies. "The uh - the painting too." Christ. 

For the greater good, he shuts his pie hole and chooses to watch instead, fascinated, as Castiel blends his waves. There's a dark smudge of paint on the jut of his cheekbone, just below the rise-fall of his lashes, and a deep, low pull yanks at Dean's insides, like a hand has grabbed ahold of his lungs and is twisting over and over. Brief flashes of punches and bruised skin flicker through his minds' eye, and Dean's gut rolls in his skin, nauseous. 

Quiet stretches between them now, and the taller man chews his lip. A gull caws in the distance, and he flinches. Every part of him is begging him to engage Cas in conversation, to try and smooth things over, at least ease the ache a little, but Castiel simply paints on, perfectly content to ignore Dean's existence, and Dean can't blame him in the slightest. 

"You know," Dean says, struck with a sudden thought, giving into the part of his brain begging him to speak and fill the void. Castiel gives no hint that he even knows Dean's sat beside him, "I swear, I never once saw you in an art class back at school." 

The brush snaps. 

Just like that. Clean in two, between Castiel's trembling fingers, and Dean can finally see a crack in that cold, hard front that Castiel has worked so finely into his demeanour since their meeting on the beach weeks ago 

"Your clothes are in the living room." The man's voice is flat, an eerie calmness to it, like the misleading tranquillity of the sea, concealing its true power. "Get dressed and leave." 

Dean swallows. Their shared history was not to be mentioned, apparently. He stands, unwilling to cause even more distress to this enigma than he has already, and goes to search out his clothes. They're folded on the floor by the futon, as if Castiel couldn't bear to let them touch anything of his own. Dean tugs them on, quick and efficient, notices the faint scent of washing powder, and that little extra touch makes him feel even worse. Castiel went to the trouble of washing his clothes. At this point, Dean's skin burning. It's like he's been branded with a hot iron, and it reads: _"Tormentor of a good man."_

By now, he should have learned to leave well enough alone, but when Castiel storms back inside to shove his paintbrushes and paint tubes into a worn, wall-mounted pine cabinet by the television, Dean can't help but try to reach out. 

"Cas?" 

The guy freezes up, locks into place, so much of that prior composure lost in the seabreeze and carried away across the globe. Dean almost misses it. 

"I just," he rubs the back of his neck from where he's perched on the edge of the futon, wary of further tresspassing on Castiel's sanctum. Words are hard. "I wanna thank you." 

"I could hardly let you die." Castiel says robotically, like it's the automatic response, his head still buried in his cupboard. Dean snorts. 

"That's not the point." 

"Then what _is_?" Dean flinches at the flint in Castiel's razor-sharp voice. Blue-edged steel focuses in on him, laser sharp and _cutting_. "Enlighten me." 

Dean stands, because he hates feeling so helpless, even in a situation where he has no right to feel otherwise. 

"The _point_ ," he stresses softly, _carefully_ , "Is that I was dead out there. Good as gone. Hell, if our roles were reversed, I would've _left_ you out there, Cas." 

There's a set to Castiel's jaw, a shine in his eyes, but his gaze never wavers from Dean's, and the taller man wonders where all that defiance was when they were fourteen. When it was damn well _needed_. 

"And yet again, you prove to me how _decent_ of a human being you are." Castiel sneers, threatened and snarling, like a wounded animal, words tainted and bloody, "You think a simple 'thank you' is going to --" 

"I'm _sorry!_ " Dean's voice rises of its own accord, and Castiel's steel layer peels back in a telling flinch, an instinctive reaction from a past long forgotten. Dean immediately backtracks. "Shit Cas, I - I remember everything I did to you and you - you'd just _lie there_ and _take_ it. Fuck, I've been beating myself up for weeks, I wanna make it _right_ \--" 

"- so that you can feel better about yourself?" Castiel snaps, body pulled taut and trembling with threat, like he very much wants to push Dean onto the futon and punch his lights out, "So you can sleep easy knowing that you 'made things right'? Because you've always been so _selfless_ , Dean, and this just proves it." 

God, when he puts it like _that_ \- it's selfish, so selfish of Dean to ask for forgiveness, because every word Castiel is saying is so fucking _true_. The words that were on Dean's tongue shrivel up and die, throat tucking up tight against his jaw as he ducks away, breaking their gazes and staring at the panelled floor, offering submission to the other man. White sand dusts the ground around Cas' feet, and he focuses on that instead of the blue lasers he knows are still drilling into his skull. 

"No 'sorry' will make me forgive you, Dean." Castiel's voice has retreated, back into that cool, unattached place that makes every hair on Dean's forearms strain to attention, soldiers waiting for their commands. "I don't want your apologies or your guilt. Please leave." 

Castiel stalks away after that, and Dean - stupid, stupid Dean - rushes after him, breathless as he follows Castiel outside, skidding down a sandy dune in his haste to follow. 

"If you won't take my apology --" he yells over the winds and the bellow of the ocean, "Will you take dinner?" 

Castiel stops in his paces, and turns, so slowly that Dean can almost _hear_ the creak of door hinges. 

"Dinner?" Castiel yells back, nothing but confusion and the defensive rise of his shoulders against the wind, hair blowing wildly, his eyes squinted against the sun. It's a new look, it makes him seem vulnerable and a little more human, and Dean lets himself hope, because new is _good_ , new is _now_ and not _then_. 

"Yeah!" He hollers, jogging forwards, "We could --" 

His sentence rips in half as he trips on a tough tuft of grass, landing flat on his face not three metres from where Castiel stands. Sputtering up a dry mouthful of sand, he pushes himself up, looking above at the silhouette Cas makes against the sky; his head is haloed by the sun, and his expression is hard to read where it's cast in shadow. Dean hears a low sigh, and then a broad hand is begrudgingly offered to him. Blushing from his ears onwards, Dean takes it and stands, suddenly all kinds of nervous now that the howl of wind and the rush of the water no longer separates them. Words can be heard now. Dean has to pick them carefully or he's gonna screw everything up again. 

"No obligation." He promises, searching out Cas' unreadable eyes. They're cloudy, but with what, Dean can't tell. "Just lemme buy dinner for the guy who saved my ass from drowning. Then you'll never see me again. Scout's Honour." 

Castiel folds his arms, watching with a detached brand of fascination as Dean crosses over his heart with a single finger. The man looks so tired, so _exhausted_ , that for one wild moment, Dean wishes they'd never even met at all, just to spare him this much trouble. 

"Please?" He can't do the puppy eyes like Sam can, but he can damn well try. Dean knows he's pushing, and he _knows_ he shouldn't, but he also knows that this shit between them needs to be eased over, and he's so damn self-absorbed that he wants to do it. He wants Castiel to give him an opening, to let him absolve himself, and hopefully help heal Castiel in the process, if he can. Castiel just needs to give him permission. 

The shorter man looks troubled, brows drawn and eyes averted. Like lightning, Dean comes to the conclusion that he'd like to see something other than trouble in Castiel's expression. His laugh must be gorgeous, and judging by the lines fanning out from his eyes, his smile would be dazzling, all cheeks and bright eyes and gummy teeth. Selfish and stupid, Dean knows he won't stop until he at least catches a glimpse. 

After what feels like years, Castiel's whole body seems to deflate under Dean's gaze, voice tight as he looks away. "Just dinner." 

"Just dinner." Dean confirms, bright and hopeful. His foot is in the doorway. 

"Fine." Castiel says. There's no telling lilt to his voice, nothing that gives away what he's feeling, and Dean has to bite back a frown. "You can pick the place. I don't care." 

"Great." Dean breathes, "Great, thanks - thank you, Cas." 

"You don't get to call me that." Castiel all but spits, turning on his heel and walking back to the house. A lot of their interactions, it seems, end with Dean chasing and Castiel running. It's such an eerie parallel of when they were kids that Dean shudders where he's stood, wrapping his arms around himself against the wind. He doesn't want to keep repeating the same mistakes his teenager self made. That's the absolute _last_ thing he wants to do. 

The house stands above the dunes, a white hut glowing in the Cali sun, long grass rippling around it, and it's too peaceful a contrast to the man inside. It doesn't make sense. There's a storm contained behind those walls, and Dean doesn't know if he's ready to brave it yet. 

**IV** ****

"Soooooo... date night?" 

Gabe grins a predatory smirk from Dean's doorway; the taller man ignores him in favour of straightening out the collar of his shirt. Sure, he was taking Cas out to dinner tonight and sure, maybe he _might've_ dressed up for the occasion - but this was definitely _not_ a ' _date night'_. Far from it. 

"C'mon - is it with the handsome, rugged mystery-man who saved you from a watery grave?" Dean stumbles under the weight of Gabe's hand where it pummels him in the shoulder. "Dean you're wearing a _dress_ shirt, for Odin's sake." 

"Yeah, and?" He checks himself over in the tiny mirror bolted to his wall, running fingers through his hair and patting down his shoulders, "Maybe I just wanna look like a guy that's worth saving, y'know?" 

"Worth _fucking_ , more like." 

Gabriel's resulting yelp as Dean grabs him by the collar and throws him out onto the landing is heard by the whole house. Dean turns back to his mirror and straightens his collar one last time. 

"Worth saving." He says to his reflection. Defiant green eyes stare back, pouty lips to boot, and he glares. 

" _Saving_. Dammit." 

\--- 

Dean chose this little place near the boardwalk; it's not heaving with students and the food's alright. He'd written the place down on a bit of scrap paper, and left it on Castiel's breakfast island before he'd left that morning, just to save them both the awkwardness of organising a time and place. 

Dean's phone (new one, since he'd lost his other one _in the fucking ocean -_ Mary was furious at him, by the way, for doing something so _'utterly stupid'_ ) blinks the time up at him. _17:36_. Dean had left a time of _5:30_ on the paper. Castiel was late. Hell, Dean wasn't sure if he expected the guy to even _show_. 

Dean stands outside the cozy little restaurant for another twenty minutes, and he's thinking about calling it a day, until he sees Cas round the corner, dressed in - dressed in... is that a _tie-dye t-shirt_? 

Yep, sure enough, as Castiel gets closer, so does the psychedellic orange-red-pink-green flare of his tie-dye tee. His birkenstocks flap hard against the ground and Christ, it's January, why is he only wearing khaki shorts? Can he actually feel his legs? Does he even _know_ what he looks like? 

The shorter man coasts to a stop about five-foot before Dean, as if he's only just seen the taller man, and his mouth drops open in a disappointed little "Oh." 

"Oh?" Dean questions. 

"I'd hoped you wouldn't be here." He answers, blunt and uncaring, leaving Dean a sputtering mess on the sidewalk as he glides seamlessly into the restaurant beyond, promptly asking for a table for two, not waiting for Dean to catch up. Their waitress casts them odd looks, at the juxtaposition of Dean's formal attire and Castiel's... whatever-the-hell attire especially, but Cas doesn't seem to care, folding his lithe self into a seat and plucking a menu from the table as though it's a routine he's performed every day of his life. He orders a large glass of chardonnay, and Dean's too dumbstruck by his bluntness to order anything at all. 

"Uhh," Dean mumbles as their waitress trots away, mouth suddenly watering for the beer he'd been planning to order earlier. Cas' face is almost completely obscured by the menu, eyes hidden by the laminated cardboard. Deant tries not to associate it with a locker door. "So - so uh, how are you, Castiel?" 

It's such a shitty, lame line to start on that Dean wants nothing more than to curl up on the floor and wait for death. 

"Uncomfortable, now." Castiel delivers from behind his menu-shield; he's cleverer than Dean, going straight for the avoidance tactic, one word-answers and a hidden face. Dean clears his throat. His meticulously straightened collar feels way too tight, all of a sudden. 

"Yeah..." He trails, offers an awkward little laugh to try and diffuse the tension, doing nothing but increasing it, "Sorry, I - I never expected this to be easy." 

The menu hits the table with a slap that makes Dean startle where he's sat. 

Castiel narrows his eyes, blue meeting green for the first time of the evening. "You never expected this..." He says, voice quiet and disarmingly gentle, "...to be easy." He finishes, mouthing around each word like he's tasting a foreign delicacy, or a glass of two-hundred dollar wine, strange and new on his tongue. Dean's blood turns cold, though he's not sure why. 

"Yeah - you know," he makes a vague gesture between them, hoping he doesn't have to explain himself, because that gaze is making him stammer and he doesn't know how much more of it he can handle. "This. Us. Dinner." 

_Me Tarzan. You Jane._

"Dinner was _your_ idea, Dean." 

That tone is accusatory. A red warning light starts flashing in Dean's brain. "Yeah, I uh," he gulps, "I know it was, but what I mean is --" 

"I apologise for failing to meet your unwritten expectations." Castiel cuts in, a knife through Dean-shaped butter, "Would you have rathered that I'd greeted you with a hug and pretended that I actually _liked_ you? You thought that, perhaps, we'd be _friends_ , after this?" 

"No!" Dean defends, irritation licking up his spine despite his best efforts to fend it off, "God no, jeez, I just - I'm trying and you're making this harder than it has to be --" 

" _I'm_ making this hard?" Castiel arches back, and _laughs_ , a bitter, broken thing that catches the attention of one too many people surrounding them. He ricochets forwards from the momentum, curling over the table to look Dean in the eyes. "Do you _hear_ yourself when you speak, or are you so used to the sound of your own voice by now that you've become deaf to it?" 

Dean doesn't want to lose his rag, especially here, with Castiel, but there's only so much patience one man can have - 

"Large chardonnay?" 

They break their staring match and look up; their waitress is looking down at them like they're about to chew her to pieces, a tray resting upon her splayed fingers, a large glass of bubbling chardonnay resting atop it. Castiel switches from a bitter leer to a fake smile in two seconds flat, apologising profusely for the noise and managing to get the woman to _smile_ as he takes his glass between his slender fingers. He orders his meal, something that washes completely over Dean, purely because he's so damn _fascinated_. Cas switched gears faster than Gabe on his uppers, and _that_ is a feat worth being awed by. 

The waitress asks Dean what he'd like to eat too, and he realises that he hasn't even looked at the menu, so he spares all of them the hurt by ordering whatever Castiel's having. She speeds off, leaving the two of them alone. Like a lightbulb, Castiel's friendly demeanour switches right off, and he stares grouchily into the distance as he sips his drink. 

"Dude," Dean says, awed, "How the hell d'you switch gears like that?" 

Castiel snorts into his chardonnay - a genuine sound, for once, dry and amused - and he looks at Dean over the rim of his glass. 

"Many years of practice, I think." He answers with a wry grin, which abruptly falls, because Dean's grinning too, and that - that was an actual, _civil_ exchange they just had right there, wasn't it? 

Progress, motherfucker. _Progress_. 

Their food comes surprisingly fast - it's like the owners don't want them there or something. Hm, Dean can't _possibly_ wonder why. The taller man investigates the weird, red sauce puree stuff that's been lathered all over an innocent chicken breast sat next to a pile of salad on his plate, nose wrinkling as he prods at it with his fork. 

"It isn't going to _bite_ you, Dean, just eat it." 

They glance at each other again, surprised at the inclusive interaction. Castiel himself looks shocked at his own, joking tone, all wide-eyes and startled frowns, and he quickly ducks down, staring at his plate with such force that Dean's surprised it doesn't simply crack in half from the pressure. The exchange creates another, thicker tension, but this one isn't filled with the certainty that shit's about to go down - it feels more like uncertainty, like Cas doesn't know what the fuck he's doing right now. 

They're in the same boat, Dean thinks. 

They eat in silence, but Castiel doesn't make it awkward, quite content to simply watch the other patrons in the restaurant as they bustle about, laughing and joking and eating and entertaining. It creates a weird watching triangle; Dean watching Cas watching people. It's probably a ploy so that Cas doesn't have to look Dean in the eye, and the taller man is somewhat grateful for the consideration, even if it isn't considersation specifically for himself. 

None of them order dessert, too put-off by the prickly atmosphere to want to prolong it. Dean asks for the bill and grabs his wallet when it's put down in front of him, complimentary mints and all. He fumbles for a moment, grabs a few notes, enough to leave a generous tip that'll make up for the hassle at the beginning, and goes to place them down - only to find two twenties there already, mints gone. Castiel's chair is empty. 

Dean swears - how can someone as broad as Castiel be so damn _quiet?_ \- and throws down another twenty just to feel justified in kick-starting this mess. The waitress is gonna be happy tonight. He stands, chair teetering precariously before he catches it and shoves it under the table, bolting for the exit and scanning the street for any sign of tie-dyed tees or khaki shorts. He finds neither. Just an empty stretch of grey sidewalk, dimly lit by lampposts below a chilling January sky. 

This was probably Castiel's game-plan all along. Sit down, eat quick, and bolt before Dean could stop him. He obviously paid so that he wouldn't feel obligated to stay. But hey, Dean had learned that the guy liked mints, at least. And chicken. And chardonnay. 

God, this whole debacle was a failure. 

Save for that shining moment in the middle, the one where they'd grinned, genuinely, at each other, this whole process had been a waste of time. Dean should've known - Castiel didn't want him in his life at all. For Dean to have even tried - fuck, he was so damn _stupid_. Forcing Cas into an awkward situation like that; it was so damn selfish of him, like cornering a wounded animal, rabid and teeth bared. One who doesn't want to be helped. 

Somebody taps his shoulder, breaking him from the reverie of his thoughts, and he turns to see their waitress, smiling sympathetically at him. 

"He told me to thank you for the meal." She said, looking at Dean with something suspiciously close to pity, "Rough patch, huh?" 

Dean should tell her to mind her own business, but he can't find the energy to partake in another confrontation today. "You can say that again." 

She pats a sympathetic hand on his arm. "All couples have them eventually, I'm afraid. You'll sort it out soon, I'm sure - you're trying, and that's what counts in a relationship. That and you two look _great_ together." 

The waitress sends his gaping face another one of those disarmingly sugary-sweet smiles, and she bounces off, ponytail swinging behind her. Dean swallows, and looks down at his shoes, brain whiting out as the subtext of her words sink in. 

...Did they really look great together? 

**V** ****

Dean goes to parties, gets drunk, and tries to forget about Castiel. 

Every memory, thought and notion of the man gets wrapped up in yellow hazard tape, and shoved in one big bundle to the back of his head, soaked with alcohol and the prayed hope that, eventually, every thought will melt away. 

In a cruel twist of fate, one of the parties Dean attends, Castiel is actually _at_. As if the world thinks that, now they've met each other again, they should keep on meeting. Dean couldn't stomach the accidental eye contact they made, the way their eyes met through the haze of sweaty, dimly lit bodies, the way Castiel looked straight through him, unseeing as he got pounded from behind by some nameless guy into the arm of a wrecked couch. The air evaporated, and Dean ran out of the fraternity as fast as his drunken legs could carry him. 

Every time Dean's brain summons the image during an unprotected moment of quiet, it always manages to twist his gut up into sharp, hot knots, a feeling that demands attention until he feels flattened into the ground by the sheer magnitude of it. Half naked Castiel, with his eyes glazed over, like he wasn't even _conscious_... 

Is Castiel like this, because of him? A sex-dependent hermit who can only find solitude through carnal pleasure? The idea forms and grows into a solid, stone band, pressing in at Dean from all sides as the days trudge on. It's enough to stop him going out altogether, save for work and school, for fear of running into those haunting blue eyes again. He gets drunk in his room every other night in an attempt to mimic his old partying routine. Benny often watches as he passes out, unknowing that Dean is occupied with trying to scrub his mind clean of every Castiel-related thought in his head. Brain bleach would be a great thing if it existed. 

Then of course, just as Dean thinks he might be in the clear, Castiel washes up straight into Dean's life again, a lot sooner than either of them are expecting. And this time, Dean can't turn tail and run. 

It's near the end of January, weeks after the Dinner Date Disaster that will go down in infamy. Dean's working up a sweat, jogging up a 5k stretch of the gorgeous Santa Cruz shoreline (he drinks too much and overdoses on red meat daily, he needs to run otherwise he's gonna look like a damn sumo wrestler). His sneakers are riddled with sand by the time he reaches the Natural Bridges, but he keeps going anyway, headphone wires swinging, 'Eye of the Tiger' blasting through his eardrums. Motivation, he's told Gabe numerous times, is _key_. Sure, maybe he just likes pretending he's Rocky Balboa training up before the big fight with Apollo Creed, but Gabe doesn't need to know that. 

The sun goes down over the water as Dean runs, and he's absently watching the sky light up with bright oranges and deep purples when a dark figure slips into his line of vision, and it's weird, because after years of _not_ running into Castiel, Dean's been doing nothing _but_ for the past few weeks. The guy is fucking ubiquitous. 

But, like the good Samaritan he is, Dean has every intention of running on and pretending that he hasn't noticed, leaving Castiel be for once in his life, as he promised to - but then Cas' whole shape kind of... _lollops_ , awkward where his legs cut through the sea-foam, and Dean pauses in his running, curiosity piqued. 

Rooted to the spot, he watches as Castiel wades into hip-high water, body language all wrong and jarring, yet oddly familiar, like Dean's seen it before. Castiel stoops forwards and wobbles on the spot, arms spread, and Dean realizes he recognizes it because he's seen on himself numerous times. 

Castiel is _drunk_. 

Then the silhouette stumbles forward, all at once, the final domino tipping, and Dean looks on, horrified, as Castiel topples headfirst into an oncoming wave. 

The headphones hit the ground like a wiry, dead snakes, and Dean's already sand-filled shoes become waterlogged as he sprints into the ocean, hands reaching in and grabbing scraps of delicate shirt fabric in his fists, tugging for all he’s worth. He heaves upwards, throwing his whole weight into the pull, and he goes cross-eyed with relief when he drags a sputtering Castiel up above the waves. 

The guy doesn't seem shaken at all - quite the contrary, in fact. He looks almost _giddy_ , smiling a deep, cracked smile and laughing through his shaky inhales - every bit the broken man Dean had expected him to be. 

Dean hates being right. 

" _Deeeeeaaann_." Castiel breathes as he's dragged out of the ocean - the cold water is making Dean quiver, but the alcohol must be fucking up Cas' nervous system or something, because he doesn't seemed fazed in the slightest. “Oh Dean, _why_ are you here?” 

Jesus, he sounds like he's barely functioning, words crashing into each other and dripping off of Cas' tongue like they're made of honey. Dean grabs an arm and wraps it over his shoulders, yanking Castiel's dead weight out onto the shore. The shorter man leans heavily into him, face finding Dean's chest. He's soaked to the bone, shivering now too, and Dean feels like he's been thrown straight into the deep end, because Cas seemed like too composed of a person to go out and get pissed enough to wander into the ocean like this. A scenario like this isn't something he knows how to deal with, and the thought alone is enough to tighten his chest up with a prickle of honest-to-God anxiety. 

Huffing, determined not to let worry get the best of him like it has so, so many times before, Dean adjusts his grip around Castiel's waist, and begins the treacherous walk back to the man's home; it's not far, near the lighthouse Dean ran past on the way here, it shouldn't take long - 

The arm around Dean's shoulders unwinds, and a palm shoves him, hard, in the sternum. Drunken, but strong. He stumbles with the force, eyes flickering to Cas as he trips from the force of the rebound. The man sways where he stands on the sand, a leaf caught in a breeze; his hair is plastered to his head with seawater, and his clothes are sticking to him. The words 'drowned cat' come to mind, 'pissed off' being added as a prefix when Cas glares silent accusations at him from under a black mop of sopping hair. 

"How _dare_ you." He hisses, eyes shining that same, crazed glint when he'd pressed Dean to the shore with a solid knee, threatening to break bone. " _You_ ," he slurs, prodding Dean in the chest with a shaky finger, "Do _not_ get to touch me." 

Dean frowns, "Cas buddy, I have to get you home --" 

"You don't _'have'_ do _shit_ , Dean Winchester." Castiel is wobbling, his hands fisted at his sides. Even in a state like this, slurs and all, he still manages to scare the crap of Dean, in more ways than one, the sharp angles of his body drawing dark lines all the way across him, as if he's wrapped up in an impenetrable spiderweb - so tough that he himself can't even break through it. "You didn't _have_ to harass me on a daily basis, you didn't _have_ to shove my head into toilet bowls, you didn't _have_ to corner me in the showers --" 

Dean winces, wrapping a hand gently around Castiel's elbow to stop him from falling. "Yeah, but I did anyway, didn't I?" He murmurs softly, and Castiel looks confused at Dean's outright admission, as if he'd expected Dean to deny it. His head lolls on his shoulders in what might be a parody of a nod. Dean sighs heavy through his nose; Castiel Novak, babyfaced blond freshman, turned broken drunkie painter, starring Dean as the catalyst. "Please Cas, just - let me walk you to your door. You can't be out like this." 

The shorter man squints at him through uneven, suspicious slits, but he must cave in to Dean's request, because he slings a heavy arm around Dean's shoulder and weakly yells " _Charge!_ ", brandishing an appendage in the vague direction of his home. In any other scenario, Dean would've laughed his ass off at the action, but everything Cas just said hit a little too close to home, and it's left Dean feeling queasy. 

They start the trek to Cas' house on shaky feet, and Dean keeps a wary eye out for the cops. Cali is a pretty lenient, liberal state, but he doesn't doubt that they might haul Castiel in overnight for being drunk and disorderly, seeing as the guy is currently singing a loud, enthusiastic, off-key rendition of _"Livin' on a Prayer_ ". Even Dean can't hold back a smirk at that; it's the first time he's ever heard Cas sound truly untroubled, attacking the chorus with a strained, out-of-tune voice. Alcohol's good like this. It makes you forgot the important stuff so you can have a good time, and God knows Cas probably needs some of those. Preferably without jumping headfirst into the ocean, that is. 

If the singing doesn't give away the fact that Castiel is supremely smashed, their footprints will. They wind all the way up to Cas' patio, two sets; one relatively neat and well placed, the other leaving dragging, deep gauges in the sand, almost as if Dean's dragged a body. With the way Castiel lives, the description isn't too far off. 

Hopefully, the footprints'll have blown over by morning; Dean doesn't know if Cas will remember this, but if he does, he doubts the man will want to see any evidence of it. Anything Dean-related puts the guy in a foul mood, even while drunk, and it'd just be plain cruel to pair that foul mood with an achy hangover. 

Castiel gestures vaguely at the door mat at the foot of the patio doors and Dean gets the message, propping Cas against the wall whilst he leans down and plucks a key out from under it. The doors slide open a moment later, and Castiel snatches the key from his palm, like Dean touching any of his possessions is heresy, before tumbling inside with an 'oof' and a distant thud. Dean stands on the pine patio, chewing the inside of his cheek, weight shifting from foot to foot. The waves, black and looming, crash behind him. 

Leaving Cas like this makes him nervous. What if he decides to go for another ocean-side stroll? But he can't just _waltz_ in, Cas might literally kill him if he did that - 

"Just _come in._ " Castiel hisses from inside, "Stop standing there and gawking, it's making me uncomfortable." 

Dean swallows, and walks inside. 

It's dark; Dean can only just see the roughly Castiel-shaped shadow fumbling around in the kitchen. There's a click, then lights beneath the kitchen counters flicker on. Castiel stands, sodden and dripping, by the breakfast island, hands reaching towards a - oh God - 

"No no, Cas!" Dean sprints over, slipping on the wet trail Castiel has left behind him as he yanks the half-finished bottle of tequila from the other man's hands, holding it higher than Castiel can reach. 

"I think you've had enough." Dean warns, ignoring Castiel's sneer in favour of slinging the bottle in the nearest cupboard; he ignores the crowd of alcohol in there, too. 

"I don't understand you." Castiel says as Dean shuts the cupboard. "You don't make _sense_." 

The shorter man is propped on his elbow against the breakfast island, leaning his cheek heavily on his palm, squashing his face into a child-like expression, petulant and grouchy, as if he's just been denied his favourite toy. Dean cocks an eyebrow at him. 

"Why's that?" He asks, careful with the tone of his voice. Cas is vulnerable right now, split open by the axe of alcohol running through his system. Dean doesn't want to draw anything unfavourable to the surface. He remembers the way Cas had flinched when Dean had raised his voice at him a little over a week ago, and his throat feels like the the sand outside, coarse and dry. 

Abruptly, Castiel stands, a macabre Jack-in-the-Box, spring-loaded and unpredictable, his body bending as though it's caught in a strong gust of wind as he swings into Dean's personal bubble. 

"Because you keep acting like you _care_." His eyes flicker up and down Dean's body, inspecting, disgusted. He's so close that the drop of seawater that drips off of his nose lands on Dean's chest. "You give me space and pretend you're respecting my fucking boundaries, and you act like you care, and a part of me _likes_ it. I _like_ you, Dean." 

An anvil drops in the vicinity of Dean's gut. 

Cas _likes_ him? 

The guy must be tripping balls too. 

"C'mon, Chatty Cathy," he grumbles, shepherding Cas to his bedroom, "You gotta get out of those clothes before you get pneumonia or somethin'. 

He has to avert his eyes when Castiel, without preamble, stumbles ahead and yanks his shirt clean over his head, the fabric hitting the floor with a wet slap. His jeans quickly follow, and it's like the guy doesn't even _care_ that he just stripped with Dean stood at his bedroom doorway. If anything, he looks like he almost _enjoys_ it, knowing Dean's there, glancing over a broad shoulder with azure fire in his gaze, the razor's edge of a smile barely visible over tan skin. 

"No point looking away." He says, hiccups, really, "Not like you haven't already seen it all." 

Ice runs through Dean's veins. Castiel isn't talking about the frat party. 

Cas' eyes set alight, latching onto Dean's sudden drop in mood as if it's a drug, addicting and everything he's ever wanted in his life. The man slides up to him, all lithe, curving edges and tilted hips; there's a liquid-black hint of a tattoo curling down his side, a tattoo that Dean didn't know he had; a ragged, circular scar below his collar bone - looks like a burn. None of it changes the fact that he's gorgeous, bare and shining in the dappled moonlight that pours through the curtains, naked save for the sopping wet black smudge of boxer briefs clinging to his hips. The patch of wall behind Cas suddenly becomes much more interesting. 

A hand, broad and warm and _terrifying_ , curves around Dean's shoulder, burning a hole through his tee and freezing up his insides. 

"Remember when you made me suck your cock?" 

Fuck. 

Dean thought Castiel hadn't remembered but fuck, he _does_. 

"Was so scared." Cas slurs, voice lilting and soft and _wrong_ , his grip turning tight around Dean's t-shirt, fingers twisting in the material. A harsh, hard breath blows through the taller man's nose, skin trembling. He'd locked those memories of his high school years up in a stony, dark corner of his mind, and now Cas is dragging them out, hand picking them himself, and with each new one that surfaces, it feels like Dean's ribs are being snapped, one by one. "Thought you were going to punch me but then you kissed me and --" 

" _Cas_." 

"- and you shoved my head down, right there, in the showers." Cas' breath, alcohol-tinged and searing, fans across Dean's lips, and the taller man forces his head to turn the other way, because if he inhales one more Castiel-scented breath coupled with the images in his mind, he thinks he might puke. There's bile bubbling in his stomach, gut clenching over and over, like his body wants nothing more than to throw up all the memories and flush them down the toilet where they belong. 

"I hate you for it." Castiel whispers, more to himself than Dean, voice scared and choppy. "But I hate myself more because I _liked_ it. Because you were _right_." He looks down at the floor, eyes sad and reluctant, hand tighter than ever in Dean's tee, "The first time you see me since high school, I'm on my knees giving a blowjob to the nearest man that would have me. I'm everything you said I was. I'm a slut and a faggot and a - a _cock-sucker_." The word is spat from his mouth, and he sounds like he wants to throw a punch, but he looks - God, he just looks _tired_. "You were right, Dean, and yet I _like_ you." His gaze drops, just like his voice, falling into some fathomless abyss that Dean can't even begin to comprehend. Startled, Dean's heart thumps when Cas' thumb rubs a soft, misleading circle against Dean's collar bone, like he's trapped within the touch - trapped in _Dean_. "Just like before..." 

Dean doesn't allow Cas to finish. "Get into bed." He croaks, mind rushing as his chattering brain tries to come to one too many conclusions at once. The noise gets smothered in favour of placing his hands on the platonic, _safe_ areas of Cas' biceps, pushing back lightly. Cas simply rocks with the motion, like a damn Bobo doll. "Please Cas, just - get into bed. Please." 

With the way Castiel goes pliant beneath his hands, Dean almost wishes there'd been more of a fight, because feeling Castiel turn fragile and malleable under his palms touches on a few too many of the raw topics that are circling the front of Dean's mind right now. 

Castiel topples on top of the sheets, face first, so when Dean leans over to pull the comforter over the man's prostrate form, he isn't anticipating the hand that snatches up collar of his shirt and pulls, and he _definitely_ isn't anticipating the hot mouth being pressed to his own a second after. He squawks in surprise, yanking himself away with a strength that astonishes them both. 

In the dark, Dean's sight zeroes in on the shine of Castiel's blue, blue eyes, and his heart hammers beneath the place where Cas' hand is still bunched, desperate and unwilling to let go. 

"I'm so alone." Castiel whispers, broken and wounded, sounding so sober that Dean can believe that he is. "The world is so quiet, in here." He taps his scalp hard with a spare, shaky hand, looking every bit like he wants to dig his nails in and rip his own brain out. Dean thinks of the house beyond - the empty, picture-less house. "I fill it up with sex and booze, but it's so... empty... so _greedy_." The bob of his adam's apple jumps twice, and he shakes where he's lying, shakes so hard that Dean can feel rattling his bones. "It wants more, Dean. It wants -" he stares at Dean, hard and scared, "- it everything I can't give it and I..." 

His eyes, shining, flicker back and forth - Dean, ceiling, window, Dean, ceiling, window - and then something in him seems to break. He pulls the taller man down again, mouth searching, but Dean doesn't let himself be tugged, keeping himself above with his hands either side of Cas' head on the pillow, a decent twelve inches between their noses. He takes a deep, grounding breath. 

"Cas..." He trails. This man is so broken. Dinner wasn't ever going to heal him, and it was thick of Dean to even try. Food cannot heal infected wounds. "Cas you - you know I _can't_ \--" 

" _Why not_?" Castiel barks, voice flaring up with fragmented aggression, "You didn't consider consent before, why _now_? Why do you _care_? Why won't you let me. have this? Why..." 

Castiel's voice fizzles out with a weak crack, and he turns his head against the pillow, mouth pressed into a thin, white line, and Dean watches in shock as a group of tears spill from Cas' eyes. 

"Shit." Dean breathes, drawing Cas' attention back to him, and it's like the shorter man has only just realized that Dean's there to bear witness. His gaze hardens, and his hands shove hard at Dean's shoulders, desperately trying to rebuild the defences that have just fallen down around them. 

"If you won't fuck me then leave." Castiel's voice tries to mimic the hard, flat steel that it usually it, but the illusion breaks as soon as his words wobble. Dean doesn't move. A couple of hard hits pound Dean in the chest, but he still doesn't shift. Castiel snarls. "I mean it Dean, move - get off me, get out, get _out_ \--" 

Dean leans back to save himself from Castiel's flailing arms, but he doesn't move off the bed, catching Castiel's wrists in his hands as the man growls, restless; Dean holds them firmly, but without force. Castiel could fight him off, Dean doesn't doubt that, but he's getting the feeling that Cas doesn't want him to go. 

"Dean," Cas' voice loses the edge when he realises that Dean isn't leaving, the pain seeping back in, "Dean, please..." 

"I'm stayin' 'til I know you're ok, Cas." Dean says, quietly, voice soft, and Castiel - Castiel _breaks_. 

His body caves, slumping into Dean's as he gives, he relents control and lets himself feel for the first time in what might be years. Dean sighs in relief, hesitates, before folding a shaking Castiel within his arms, warily resting his chin atop that dark head of hair and rocking back and forth, slowly, like the sea when it's calm and flat, a gentle tug of waves tugging peacefully back and forth at the two of them. Maybe this is far overstepping the boundaries, but the way Castiel is _clutching_ at him, it's - well, it's scary, for one thing, to see a man who's usually so sharp crumble to dust in Dean's very arms; but it's also kind of... expected. 

Ever since seeing Cas at that frat party, Dean's been waiting for the other shoe to drop, the breakdown that's been on the horizon for weeks, and now he's holding it in his arms and waiting it out. 

It feels right, he thinks, to hold Castiel like this. Feels _good_. 

"What - what are you humming?" 

Dean stops rocking in surprise - he didn't expect Cas to pipe up so soon. He looks down at the bundle in his arms, brow furrowing. 

"I wasn't." 

"Yes you were." Castiel argues, quick to latch onto anything confrontational, probably to feel some semblance of normalcy once more - to re-establish the status quo. "What was it?" 

Dean licks his lips, placing his chin back onto Castiel's head. "Hey Jude." He admits into dark, thick strands of hair. Seasalt and coconut. "My mom used to sing it to me when I was kid." 

Castiel remains quiet, and Dean hears the silent cue to carry on. 

"She did it a lot to calm herself down too." Dean continues, a string of coffee-coloured film cells whirring up behind his eyes, warm and tinted with feelings long passed, "See, there was this fire, at our first house, and it made her _real_ anxious after. Anything upset her, she'd sing it to herself. Anything upset me or my lil' bro, she'd sing it to us too. Kind of... stuck with me, I guess." 

There's a beat of silence that stretches on forever. 

And then: "Hum it again." 

Dean does. 

**VI** ****

Castiel falls asleep in Dean's arms, softly snoring to the lilting melody of _"Hey Jude"_ , and Dean feels like it's more a sleep out of drunken exhaustion rather than comfort - he doubts Castiel could find comfort in anyone's arms, let alone Dean's. As he lays Cas down and tucks a blanket around his shoulders, the reality of what just happened hits him like a sack of bricks to the shoulders. 

Sober Castiel is gonna want his head on a damn _platter_. 

Despite every instinct telling him to, however, Dean won't leave. Right now, it feels like he's Cas' only friend in the whole damn world, and as ironic as that is, Dean wants to live up to that title. Even if Cas is gonna beat the shit out of him tomorrow for it. This is more than a guilty motive, this is duty, and Dean's going to fill it, no matter how altruistic it makes him seem. 

He has class in the morning, but he can call in a rare absence; it never happens, and he can copy Charlie's notes when he gets back, so he'll be fine. For now, he goes into the living room, debating whether or not to sleep, ignoring the pounding of his head and the sinister implications of what, exactly, Cas was trying to do by wading out into the ocean. Drunken mistake, or intentional mishap? God knows. Dean hopes it's the former. He reaches into the still-wet pocket of his running shorts, fumbling for his phone; it's waterproof. After he'd lost his other one in the ocean, he'd felt it would make sense to fork out the extra cash to buy a more resilient model. It blinks the time at him, _22:08_ , and Dean sighs. His house isn't too far, he could walk there, but he isn't going to. Not now. 

What could either be a pained grunt or a loud snore sounds from the bedroom, as if reminding him of the reason that he's here in the first place. A stone that feels suspiciously like worry settles in his chest; he pockets his phone, finds the doorkey to lock the doors (Cas threw it by the toaster), and closes the long line of the blinds where they cover the wall of windows. Hoping Cas won't lynch him for using his tea towel, Dean mops up the floor as best he can, tucks a few stray paintbrushes lying around into the pine cabinet, and then promptly flops down onto the futon, shoes and all, and falls asleep. 

\--- 

The ocean glows, sparkling and orange, where Dean peers down into it from over the boat's edge. Sunlight runs her fingertips over every surface, leaving a dim orange burn in her wake. The water ripples, shifting the reflected sunlight, turning it every which way. Dean breathes in a sea-scented breath, peaceful. 

Bubbles start popping on the water then, and he looks down, confused. They start off small and slow, but then they get bigger, faster, like someone's taken a huge breath and is releasing it, all at once, under the waves. Worried, Dean cranes his neck over the boat, face inches away from the water, eyes searching the murky depths. 

The bubbles stop. 

Frowning, Dean squints and leans a little closer. 

Then a hand shoots out of the water and wraps around his throat. 

His scream is lost to the ocean, and he ignores the sting of salt water in a desperate bid to open his eyes, needing to see his attacker - 

The flailing of his body stops when he opens his eyes and locks gazes with a familiar face. 

It's him, definitely; younger, with a rounder jaw, smug grin and letterman jacket worn like badges; like _armour_. His hand tightens around Dean's neck, and he brings him forward through the water, nose to nose. 

_"I'm always going to hold you back, Dean."_ He hisses, and his voice slices through the water like a machete, clear and crisp, still boyish with youth. Dean tries to argue back, to fight, but all that comes out of his mouth is his last breath in a billow of soundless bubbles. His younger self laughs, laughs and laughs like it's the funniest thing he's ever seen. 

Then he lets go. 

The last thing Dean sees is his doppelganger's fiery green eyes, and then dark blue suffocates him, until all he can feel, all he can see - is black. 

\--- 

A gasp is ripped out of him as he jacknifes up from the futon; his heart is beating hard against his ribs, like it wants _out_ , and his breath is coming so harshly that his vision goes dark around the edges. 

That dream is a common one, but - but his younger self hadn't ever said _that_ before... 

"Nightmare?" 

Dean startles where he's sat, eyes zeroing in on the steaming mug being offered to him. He takes it with a shaky hand, and tries not to look surprised when Castiel - clad in a silky blue dressing gown, the same one Dean wore on his first night here - sits beside him, imposing and collected - a stark contrast to the night before. There's a bowl in his hands, filled with what looks like coffee, and Castiel must notice Dean's look of confusion, because he pulls the bowl away from his mouth to speak. 

"I only have one mug." He explains, "A bowl is hardly different." He takes a sip of his coffee from his mug-bowl, like it's totally normal, and then he speaks again. "So what did you dream about?" 

Dean thinks of himself, young and brutish, and he shudders. "Clowns." He lies. "And midgets. Clowns and midgets." 

Castiel looks at him from over his bowl of coffee, like _Dean's_ the weird one. "An odd subject. But the subconscious can't control what it's afraid of, I suppose. I, for one, am terrified of brothels." 

A laugh escapes Dean then, because Cas is so weird. "Dude, you go to frat sex parties for fun, how are you _scared_ of _brothels_?" 

Castiel shakes his head, eyes wide and distant as he stares over the rim of his bowl, like he's remembering a fierce war he fought in, a long time ago. "You don't want to know." 

There's a moment then, where they just sit together in amicable silence, Dean's hands cupped around the comforting heat of his mug. His shorts are still damp in places, but dry and tacky with seawater in others, and it makes him wince where he's sat. 

"Never go for a late night swim again, Cas." He gruffs, shifting his ass, "These shorts aren't ever gonna be the same." 

Castiel chuckles, a dark, throaty sound that makes Dean think of warm nights in front of a crackling fire whilst a storm rages outside - and it's that thought that makes Dean realize that he's here, with _Cas_ , and the shorter man _isn't_ trying to carve out his heart with a spoon. The atmosphere feels almost too friendly, too pleasant, and Dean reigns himself in, sitting up straighter and disconnecting the brush of their shoulders. 

"...Why're you doin' this, Cas?" 

Castiel pulls his bowl away from his lips, pink tongue darting out to catch a trail of coffee, and Dean's eyes track the movement without his permission. 

"Doing what?" Cas asks, and Dean sighs, because Cas sounds so damn _content_ that Dean doesn't want to break the illusion - but he has to, for the sake of his sanity. There have been very clear lines since the start - _Cas does not like you, you cannot like Cas_ \- and it's civil exchanges like this that are blurring those lines. Dean's psyche _needs_ those barriers, otherwise he's gonna end up doing something stupid, like trying to befriend Castiel, and that - that's a big no no. 

"Acting like - like this." Dean gestures at Cas' whole person, as if that'll explain everything. "Just 'cause I pulled your ass from the ocean doesn't mean you have to pretend that you like me, okay? Go back to, I don't know," Dean shrugs, "wanting my head on a platter or something." 

_Go back to how it was, before I mess you up again._

The coffee-bowl hits the floor beside the futon with a soft clack, and Dean watches, intrigued, as Castiel shuffles around to face him head-on, legs folded, ankles covered by ripples of soft blue. A world weary sigh fills him up - he looks shamed, almost. 

"Didn't you hear me last night?" He asks, and here it comes, the big talk about the elephant in the room. Dean puts his mug down in preparation. "I... like you, Dean. Even when I tried pushing you away last night, you stayed and you _sang_ to me and --" he stops and looks away, struggling with his words, looking pained with each one that is taken from his tongue. Reluctance is etched into every line of his body. "There's no point continuing to push you away when you keep coming back to me. It's pointless trying to hate you, and I dislike persuing pointless activities." 

Dean can read right through that cool, detached tone - right through that fake, uncaring front, like this isn't important. "Cas." They can't do this, they can't... Castiel is already broken. Dean doesn't want to make it _worse_ \- 

"You've changed, Dean. I realised that yesterday." He says dismissively, and damn those honest eyes, damn them and their magnetic qualities. "I've changed too. Perhaps we should..." He trails for a long, long moment, eyes boring straight through Dean's skin and beyond, "Perhaps we should act like the adults we're supposed to be. Leave the past behind us." 

Dean grunts in annoyance. This is way too sudden a turnaround. Cas can't actually _believe_ this bull. "You know that's fortune cookie bullshit, Cas. The fucked up crap I did to you --" 

"I think I can start to forgive you for." 

"Well you damn well shouldn't!" Dean has to argue this, he has to, because Cas isn't _listening_. He's pulling away, acting like this isn't a big deal when it so clearly _is_. Dean doesn't deserve Cas' tolerance, let alone his damn _friendship_. Where the fuck was all this forgiveness coming from? "What I did to you made you run. I made you leave your whole damn _family_ behind, I'm the one that ended up isolating you from the world on this lonely, godforsaken stretch of beach. Cas I --" the words get caught in his throat, and he fights back the burning behind his eyes with a vengeance, "I don't deserve a single damn thing you think you wanna give me." 

Of all things, a hesitant hand lands on his arm, warm to the touch and comforting beyond all measure, yet it only serves to make Dean's breathing harsher. "Dean --" 

He yanks his arm back from the touch, skin scorching and turning blue all at once, the suffocating need to _escape_ suddenly collapsing in on him from all sides. He bolts up on wobbly foal-legs and swipes the doorkey off the breakfast island, pushing past the blinds into the outside world beyond. Seabreeze hits him like a blessing, and his breath comes fragmented, inhale over inhale, and he falls to his knees on the patio, the world spinning around him. 

This is it. This is how he dies, unable to breathe on the patio of someone who thinks they could care about him - 

"- hear me? Dean _breathe_ \--" 

Dean shakes his head. The ground is teetering beneath him, blood roaring in his ears, and his arms have started shaking, when did that happen? Blue invades his vision, bright and imperative, and as much as he wants to, he can't close his eyes. 

"- good, okay, like this, Dean." 

He mimics the heave of the other man's chest, breath heavy through his mouth, and the world gradually loses its momentum, the spinning grinding to halt. Dean's vision refocuses, and the first thing he sees is the sunrise over Cas' shoulder, lighting the sky up orange and bright blue. He collapses on his ass, body trembling as he runs a hand over his face. Did he just lose it, in front of _Cas_? Christ... 

"Are you alright?" 

Dean turns his head and of course Cas is there and - shit, he looks shaken, a pale pallor to his face and wide-eyed, brow bunched together in knots. The fact that he looks like he cares is almost enough to send the taller man into a frenzy again. 

"M'fine." Dean gasps, "Just gotta - gotta breathe it off." 

Jesus, he hasn't had a panic attack like that since he was sixteen, when Sammy fell down the stairs and wound up in hospital. Cas must be rooted deep in Dean's brain, if he can trigger something as primal as this. 

"Does it happen often?" 

Castiel is looking at him like he's either the most interesting innovation since sliced bread or a colossal time-bomb, all curious, careful eyes and head tilted at a 45 degree angle, an owl in a dressing gown. Dean licks his dry lips, remembering his abandoned coffee with a pang. 

"Not for a long time." He answers, "Not since I was a kid." 

"You had them... when we knew each other?" 

It's strange, to hear Cas reference that time without malice in his voice. Hesitation, definitely - but not malice. Dean shrugs. "On and off, yeah. Anxiety's a bitch like that. There ain't a cure and you don't know when it's gonna come back to bite you in the ass." 

Castiel watches him for another minute, examining his specimen; Dean knows that look. It's one he's been given before, one that reads _'You don't look like the anxious type'_ , and Dean's bracing himself for the inevitable barrage of questions - but Castiel simply offers a hand. 

"I suspect our drinks are cold by now." He says, giving Dean an easy out that he's thankful for. "Would you like breakfast?" 

Dean's too mentally wrung out to say no. 

\--- 

"Dude, you read _poetry_?" 

His food sputters on his tongue, but Dean doesn't care, 'cause he's just spotted the book strewn on the kitchen counter, 'The Oxford Library of English Poetry', and his mind has stuttered to a halt. Castiel was smart, that much was obvious by the articulate way in which he spoke - but _nerdy_? Good God. 

Castiel looks across the futon at him, one brow hitched high, a spoonful of cereal hovering between the bowl and Cas' mouth. He looks smaller without the angry front Dean's used to seeing. Smaller and almost approachable, even with the cold blue eyes. 

"Yes...?" 

Dean swallows his mouthful. "How do I even _know_ you?" 

"You bullied me in high school." 

The verbal nuclear warhead strikes Dean somewhere in the back of his brain. Casting his eyes downward, he shuts his mouth with a click of teeth. Maybe he shouldn't ask quasi-serious questions when Castiel obviously doesn't know that rhetoric is a thing that exists. 

There's a shuffle of feet on floor, but Dean doesn't fancy looking up, in case he's met with another unintentionally scathing reply. The turbulent events of this morning have put him on edge, and he doesn't want to descend in another slew of unnecessary, embarrassing panic. 

The dry flip of pages sound from the kitchen. "Do you not like poetry?" Cas' disembodied voice asks, and Dean snorts. This is too easy, he thinks. Castiel can't be like this - he can't just act like he's friends with Dean, can't forgive him overnight. It's too fast. It doesn't make sense. All that hatred, all that anger - it has to be there still, right at Cas' very core; it can't just be _gone_. 

"Didn't think anybody did, to be honest, Cas." 

"Poetry isn't the boring literary subject that most make it out to be, Dean." Another flip of pages, and then Castiel's tone flattens somewhat, the obvious drop of someone reading from a passage filtering through the gravelly register of his vocals. 

"I made a song my coat 

Covered with embroideries 

Out of old mythologies 

From heel to throat; 

But the fools caught it 

Wore it in the world's eyes 

As though they'd wrought it. 

Song, let them take it. 

For there's more enterprise 

In walking naked." 

A surprised laugh catches in Dean's throat. "Guy's got style." He gruffs, "Shove it to 'em, am I right? Still no Vonnegut though." 

This time, it's Cas' turn to sound surprised. "You like Vonnegut?" 

"Yeah, and a few others. Bukowski too." Dean scoops up his now empty bowl and meanders into the kitchen; the book is open beneath Castiel's hands, and he watches Dean with intrigued eyes, making Dean stutter in his steps. It's gonna take some getting used to, looking at a Castiel that isn't shaking with anger or annoyance. This morning has already been so hectic - maybe this is Cas' way of calming things down again. 

Course, there's no easy way to smile through all this so they can hold hands and run off into the sunset together. This is going to take time, and Dean isn't sure if he's ready, because if anything, he's going to make the entire situation _worse_. Cas is already acting so damn chummy that that's all it can possibly be - an act. Maybe he feels like he should treat Dean nice, seeing as he pulled the guy from the ocean? Would make sense. Castiel doesn't seem like someone who could live with being indebted to a person he hates, hence the paying of their meal. This is Cas' way of paying the debt off early. 

The taller man pushes those thoughts to the side for the moment, placing his bowl by the sink and joining Cas at the breakfast island. 

"Got any others?" Dean asks - if Cas wants him to fake a friendly relationship, Dean's got no reason not too. Anything that provides Cas piece of mind is a win at the point. Dean nods at the book, curious, and Castiel beams - a smile so bright and sudden that it shocks a similar one out of Dean because damn, Cas is good at playing a role when he wants to, just like he did with that waittress. A lie. The pages turn, and Cas must have his favourites memorized, 'cause he doesn't check the index at all, his fingers fondly tracing the worn pages with a familiarity that stretches beyond years. 

"This one - Oscar Wilde." Castiel taps the page, pointing out a long series of organised little stanzas, "These are my favourite verses." 

Dean bends over and squints, the letters swimming somewhat, like a swarm of tiny black spiders. He forces them to stick to the page, and reads through them. 

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves 

By each let this be heard, 

Some do it with a bitter look, 

Some with a flattering word 

The coward does it with a kiss, 

The brave man with a sword!" 

This guy sounds a little too enthusiastic about lovers killing each other, Dean thinks. 

"Some kill their love when they are young 

And some when they are old; 

Some strangle with the hands of Lust, 

Some with the hands of Gold; 

The kindest use a knife because 

The dead so soon grow cold." 

For a dusty old English dude, Oscar Wilde knew a little too much, Dean thinks as he casts a sideways glance at Castiel's beside him. The night before is still so fresh in Dean's mind, the rush of water still in his ears and the chill of Castiel's cold, cold skin at his fingertips... 

Warm blue eyes are crinkling at him now though, a not-quite smile making it onto Cas' face, and Dean feels himself blush under the gaze. This has to be a dream. He looks back to the book to stop himself from falling further, wondering how in the hell is younger self wasted his time hurting Cas when simply _being_ with him is so much better. 

Oscar Wilde was right. 'Some kill their love when they are young.' Ain't that the truth. 

**VII** ****

Rent day comes up at the end of the month, just after Dean's birthday, an event that goes ignored. There's just too many raw memories of Dad floating around in Dean's head for the day to be enjoyable. He gets a model-car set from Sam through the mail though, a cherry red Plymouth Fury that makes Dean's hands itch to pull open the covers of Christine on his book case, but otherwise, he just drinks and passes out on his bed - a habit he's grown into over the past few weeks, and doesn't have any intention of breaking. 

Currently, the inhabitants of Dean's house conglomerate in the kitchen to dump their share of the rent on the kitchen table. As usual, Gabe has a stack of notes far larger than anyone else. Nobody knows where he gets the money from, but nobody cares either. As far as they're aware, Gabe isn't even a UC student; he just popped up here one day and has been paying rent ever since, pranking people and eating all the candy reserves in the house, in-between random bouts of vanishing - but he always shows up again. None of them really mind his behaviour, especially with the hefty portion of the cost Gabe pays 

Makes it easier for Dean too; the money that doesn't go on rent or himself, goes towards Sammy's own college fund, and thanks to Gabe, a lot more goes Sam's way. All of the Winchester family, grandparents included, pitch in to help Sam out, and it's great, knowing the kid's gonna get a good education. It provides relief for a problem that Dean would've stressed over, had there not been any support. One problem that Dean certainly didn't need on top of everything else. 

"...and that's it, ladies and gents." Gabe says as Chuck pays in his last ten in single dollar bills. Guy's a neurotic with a penchance for spending too much on booze. He's always scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to rent day. "We've earned another month of living in this hellhole." 

"Don't like it, moneybags, then move out." Zeke snaps - he's been up for three days straight, working on his thesis, and his foul mood is getting worse. "You don't _have_ to live here." 

"Yeah, but I'd miss you too much, sweet cheeks." Gabe grins, blowing a kiss to Zeke from across the kitchen. Zeke grumbles something about 'short, smug bastards' before grabbing his coffee from the kitchen counter and storming off upstairs. The rest of the room breathes a collective sigh of relief. 

Samandriel slides up next to Dean, leaning against the fridge. "You slipped the sleeping pills in, right?" He asks, and Dean pulls a packet of white pills from his pocket and shakes them with a relieving rattle. 

"You know it." He says, "Guy needs some damn rest." 

Samandriel whispers an 'oh thank God' then wonders off to the living room, Gabe following. At this point, Dean would usually go upstairs to work, but Benny's snoring his ass off up in their room, having worked his nightshift at the local mall; Dean can't work with a thunderous noise like that in the background, so he grabs a beer from the fridge and sits on the worn couch next to Samandriel instead. There's a game on, but Dean's never been a fan of football like Gabe is, not that he minds. Just sitting here with the guys and drinking is enough to make Dean happy. 

With a pang, he wonders if Castiel ever hangs out with people like this. 

In school, Cas was a loner, Dean remembers. Never hung out with anyone - kept to his books and his journals. Sucked at gym class, yet somehow still managed to draw Dean's eye everytime he changed or showered. Castiel, always surprising Dean, even now. His hand twitches on his lap, a phantom itch telling him to call the guy - they'd swapped numbers before Dean had left a few days ago. Dean hadn't wanted to - in all honesty, he wanted to cut himself off from Cas before he could infect more of the guy's life - but Cas had insisted and really, Dean had thought Sammy's puppy eyes were bad; Cas' made him feel like he'd just murdered thousands of innocent, mewing kittens. There was no way he could refuse a request with Cas looking like that. 

Gabe cheers as someone scores a point, or something, and Samandriel laughs, and that does it for Dean - he pulls out his phone and starts to type. 

**hey cas, would you**

**wanna go for a**

**cas - wanna have a drink with me?**

Dean vaguely thinks 'fuck it' and sends it off with the tap of a button. Uncharted territory, is what this is. Being able to contact Cas like this - being _allowed_ to; it's strange. Foreign. Admittedly, he's only doing it out of the fear that Castiel is sat, alone, on his futon in his dark beachside house, probably for the thousandth time in a row, with no-one to talk to. Dean doesn't want Cas to be alone. If he's the only friend Cas can have (ha fucking ha) then he's gonna damn well take the opportunity to make Cas' life a little lighter, if the man will let him. 

He only has to wait a few minutes before his phone buzzes on his lap. 

**Why go out and buy alcohol when there's plenty here?**

Dean frowns. On the little diagram of anything Castiel-related in his brain, Castiel's house is officially labelled as 'dangerous territory'. He starts to type a response. 

**you need to go out more dude. cmon, not even a bar?**

This time, the response is immediate, and Dean's stomach flutters. Something about knowing that Cas is waiting attentively on the other side of the line for his response warms him to the core. 

**I don't like people, Dean.**

**you don't have to like people, you just have to like m**

**you don't have to like people to have a good time at a bar**

The reply takes a little longer this time, as if Castiel is struggling with what to say. 

**Fine,** Dean reads, hearing the defiant tone with which Cas would've said this as clear as a bell, **but you're paying.**

An unabashed smile spreads across his face. 

**sure,** he sends back, grinning like a madman, **meet you in half an hour?**

**Don't be late.**

Dean laughs at the petulant response, pocketing his phone and sitting up, ready to get his shoes. He casts a glance at the men sat next to him, and his laugh freezes on his face when he realizes that it's not the game being watched - it's _him_. 

Gabe's mouth is half-stuffed with Cheetos, and Samandriel has one, accusing eyebrow raised at him. He glances pointedly to Dean's pocket, where the phone is, then back to Dean. 

"What?" He barks, "Guy can't laugh without bein' interrogated?" 

They say nothing, and Dean's cheeks burn as he shakes his head. He shoves his feet into his boots and flings his leather jacket over his shoulders, unlocking the door with jerky movements. 

"Have fun on your date Dean!" Gabe yells from inside, and Dean slams the door hard enough to wake up Benny. 

"Not a date," he grumbles. "Not a date." 

\--- 

Waiting, Dean half expects Castiel not to show. Seeing the man so casually is a foreign concept, like watching a dog walk on its hind legs; Dean can imagine it happening, but he never quite thought he'd actually, y'know - see it. 

But there he is. Joining Dean on West Cliff Drive, _willingly_. Miracles do happen. That awful tie-dye shirt doesn't make a comeback (the more Dean thinks on that, the more he thinks that it was a ploy to make him uncomfortable as they ate, because everything else he's ever seen Cas wear has been nothing but complimentary); instead he's donned attire suited for the windy, slightly chilled air of the evening. A pair of worn jeans and thick boots, accompanied by a sweater and topped off with this godawful tan trenchcoat. It doesn't go with anything, looks absolutely goddamn ridiculous, sits too big on the man's shoulders - and the sight of a fashion statement so uniquely Cas wraps around Dean like a warm blanket, comforting and protecting him against the sea wind. 

For a moment, they simply look at each other, through the wind and silence, on the cliff edge of what Dean might one day refer to as a friendship. It's awkward for them, of course it's awkward, Dean doubted it would be anything else. Being with Cas seems harder, now that they're apparently on even ground. New, unexplored territory, with an unwritten dynamic. Anything could happen. He clears his throat. 

"Hey." Dean offers a smile; Castiel doesn't return it, disgruntled as the wind whips at his hair, trenchcoat wrapped around him and billowing behind his legs, making him look far larger than he actually is. A creepy flasher superhero. 

"My house is just down there." Castiel gruffs, grouchy as hell - it almost makes Dean feel more comfortable, the abrupt return to a pissed-off Cas, "You really wish to brave this wind in order to go to some overexpensive bar that will no doubt be filled with raucous students and idiotic customers?" 

"Yes." 

Castiel's eyes roll, and it almost makes Dean laugh. "I'd always assumed you were idiotic, but now I have proof. You're not helping your case, you know." 

"And you're not helping anyone have a good time by just standing there, looking like a ditched prom date." Dean grins, spurred on and hopeful by the fact that Cas is actually here, downright _bantering_ with him. Dean makes to walk. "C'mon, Cas." 

"Dean, wait." 

What feels like ice is injected into Dean's veins, chilling him from the core. This is it. Dean shouldn't have hoped. This is when Cas shrugs off the façade, tells him to fuck off, and goes back to his house on the hill. Serves Dean right. This moment had been long coming, he shouldn't be so shocked now that it's here - 

"I have a better place to go." 

The bubble of panic that had been growing pops in Dean's brain, leaving confusion in its wake. That...had not been what Dean was expecting. He turns, hands in his jacket pockets, curious. The winds whips at his face, gritty with sand carried over from the shoreline. 

"Like?" 

It's physical lightning, when Castiel grins, a brief shock of white teeth and teasing lines around his eyes, fanning out and illuminating Dean's whole world. 

"I'll show you." 

\--- 

Amidst the hassle and back and forth of work, school, Cas, and life as a whole, Dean had entirely forgotten the fact that Cas owned a _boat_. 

They walk to Monterey Bay. Dean, for his part, is confused the whole way; if anything, Cas would be taking him to a place where he could chop Dean into little pieces without being caught. Being lead forth by Cas - it's hard to understand that the man is pretending, because contributing a place to go isn't something that most would fake, just to pay a debt. But Dean believes that that's what's going on - he has to. There isn't any other choice. 

Silent and ambiguous, Castiel leads him to the harbor, and then - then there's this sailboat. A fucking _sailboat_. At first, Dean doesn't realize that it's Castiel's sailboat because it's - it's just so damn _beautiful_. Small though it is, its sails stand proud and stark white against the sticky blackness of the sky. It looks gorgeous, almost like a miniature schooner, a shining white diamond studded in a black band of water. Oddly, it reminds Dean of the Impala (not in looks, obviously, because no matter how many times Mary has called the Impala a 'boat of a car', it ain't gonna become bouyant any time soon) but in the way it's so meticulously looked after. So obviously _cared_ for. Castiel has his own baby, and it's so strange, to think of this aimless mishap of a man lovingly washing and caring for a goddamn boat of all things. Even stranger to think that he's willing share this secret, perfect part of himself with Dean. 

Why the hell is Cas being so good to him? 

There's a gaze attached his face, he can feel it, burning and avid. He drags his eyes away from the white plumage of the sailboat, and sees Castiel watching him, and God - he looks so _proud_ , analyising every intricacy of Dean's reaction with unabashed glee. To anyone else, he'd be scowling, but Dean can read past that, see the deepening of the crinkles around Cas' eyes, the slight curl of his mouth. Distantly, the taller man feels his heart plummet through his stomach. 

"She's beautiful, Cas." He says, only bare honesty in his voice. The only way he can react. He can almost see Cas' feathers fluffing with pride. 

"Better than any bar." Cas quips, rubbing it in, with every right to do so. Better than any bar, better than a night stuck in with Gabe - hell, at this moment, Dean can't actually think _of_ anything better to do than to spend this night with Cas. Cautious, he toes the edge of the deck, casting a permission-seeking nod from Castiel, before running a careful palm down the sailboat's gleaming side. The hand-painted word, _'Angel'_ , is written in blue, looping cursive, drawing his eye with a magnetism that he'd only ever experienced in Cas' prescence. 

"Would you like to... try her out?" 

Dean flushes at the question, embarrassed. Boats, as pretty and magnificent as they are, have always made him nervous. Cars sit on a road, they go forward and follow a direction, A to B, riding safe in the carved out veins of the earth. Boats, on the other hand... They float, fragile and aimless, on a fathomless stretch of vast, open space. Like planes... 

Castiel must sense his reluctance, because he teases: "You live by the shoreline, and you're scared of sailing?" 

Indignant, Dean grumbles, drawing his arms back to wrap around himself, fingers digging into his own arms. "Oceans are big." He defends. "People... drown." 

A hand lands on his shoulder, drawing Dean out of that fearful corner in his mind. Only his mom has ever been able to do that. Cas looks like he's holding back laughter, the bastard. "She'll take good care of us, I assure you." He says, casting his own, fond look at the boat. Treacherous, Dean's mind wonders what it'd be like to be the focus of that same look. "She's already saved you once, even if you don't remember it." 

Like that, Dean can suddenly breathe again, not knowing that he'd stopped in the first place. A shaky sigh passes his lips as he draws his hand away from the boat. Cas has taken him here for a reason. He wants Dean here. He wants Dean to come on the boat with him. Shoving his irrational fear deep, deep down in his gut, he breathes. 

"Okay." He nods, "Okay, Cas." 

It's not his trust of the boat that gets him onboard. 

**VIII**

Turns out, getting on the boat is the hardest part. 

There's lots of rocking, jumping, slipping, and Dean can count at least six times where he nearly falls in the drink. On the seventh, Castiel wraps a strong arm around his bicep, and tells him that he's okay. And Dean believes him. 

They drift for what feels like years. Everything is all the more open out here. Black, starry sky, mirrored by the glassy surface of equally black water. Dean's sat, cross-legged, at the front of the boat. Cas is fiddling with rigging, making the boat go, however that's accomplished. Dean's not going to pretend he knows a lot about sailing. The wind's died down at this point, and they coast along at a glacial pace. The boat's rocking isn't so bad, once Dean's gotten used to it. 

Out of nowhere, a bottle is handed to him - Thighslapper beer. He quirks an eyebrow as Cas sits next to him, an elegant glass slipped between his own fingers, something sparkling and bubbly and much more classy than bog-standard beer. 

"Ain't there laws against sailing and drinking or something?" 

Castiel shrugs. "Probably." 

A warm silence envelopes them in the wake of Dean's laugh. They sit together, watching the calm ripple of the ocean. Angel plods along, simple and strong across the water and Dean leans back, a peaceful feeling settling in his chest and wrapping around his muscles and easing him back onto the decking. 

Acceptance. That's what the feeling is. Pure, unadultered acceptance. Out here, sat on the ocean, they're so small, so insignificant under the endless sky. Their lives are meaningless out here, their pasts too, and for the tiniest, most singular of moments, Dean can believe the he and Cas are genuine friends. Friends sharing alcohol and a boat ride on a breezy night off the shore of Santa Cruz. Part of him almost believes that it's real, that it's true - that Cas _wants_ him here. And, because he's selfish, he focuses hard on that part of himself, amplifying it and magnifying it, clutching at it until acceptance is all he feels at his core, alongside the warm buzz of alcohol and the quiet sips of Castiel beside him. 

Dean watches him as he stares across the ocean. He can't help it. The profile of Castiel's face is pale against the night sky, dark brown hair blending into the background, eyelashes flickering lazily up and down as he blinks, glass pressed to his plush lips. His stubble has started to venture into the territory of beard, so unkempt, just like his hair. A juxtaposition to the pristine boat beneath him. Dean watches, awed, as Castiel's lips part to taste his drink once more. Maybe it's chardonnay. Castiel likes chardonnay. 

Blue eyes clash with him, sudden and cloying, like they know of every thought that Dean is keeping from himself, tucked away in the layers of his mind. He sputters at being caught out, blushing. Hurriedly, he looks away, taking a gulp of his own drink just to serve as a distraction. His heart pounds his ribs, so hard that it's Dean's sure it's going to launch out of him and make a mess of Castiel's decking. 

Compelled to skate over the odd tension between them, Dean blurts out. "You musta had a hard time hauling my ass onto this thing. I ain't exactly petite, y'know." 

For some unknown reason, Castiel laughs - not anything like the bitter thing that Dean had heard in the restaurant. No, this sound is truly ethereal, light and airy and too good for Dean's ears. 

"You thought I was an angel." Castiel chuckles in lieu of explanation. "After I... resuscitated you, you believed that I had saved you from some fiery hell. Ironic, considering," he gestures to the boat, referring to her given name, "Then you promptly passed out and drooled on yourself." 

Dean chokes on his drink. Goddamnit. Castiel probably thought Dean was the most pathetic thing he'd ever seen. As if pulling him out of the ocean hadn't been embarrassing enough, he'd gone and seen Dean _drool_ on himself too. For fuck's sake. 

Drool aside, Castiel saving him? Still a fact that Dean can't quite wrap his head around. Coincedence and chance had never been factors he'd put much faith into, but he was willing to start reading his own damn _horoscope_ if it meant things like this were to happen again. 

Silence stretches on between them, and despite Cas' easeful posture, Dean starts to feel prickly all over. Usually, he'd lose himself in the atmosphere, the conversation - but he just can't. He's not letting himself relax, waiting for the moment Cas gives up the act, or chucks him overboard - just, something to prove Dean's doubts right. That no-one can forgive this easily and simply fall into a happy back and forth as if nothing ever happened. 

"What are you thinking about?" 

The question catches Dean by surprise. What, as well as having Ghandi-esque levels of tolerance, Cas is psychic too? Just his luck. 

"Nothing." 

"I don't like to be lied to." Cas says - doesn't snap, simply states. "What are you thinking about, Dean?" 

Something about the deliberate use of his name catches Dean's at something unexpected in his chest. Castiel's attention is on him now, a little bug under a bright blue microscope. The boat's gentle rocking suddenly seems turbulent beneath Dean, amplified a thousand times more. He turns to study Cas, _really_ study him, because there has to be something readable on his face. Anger. Sadness. _Anything_. 

But all that Dean sees is indifference. Somehow, it's worse than anything else, because he can't tell what's going on behind those blue eyes. 

"How are you like this?" Dean croaks, putting his bottle down beside him. "How are you doing this?" 

Castiel's brow crinkles. "Doing what?" 

"Letting me off the hook." Dean says. "After everything I've done. You - I - Cas, I don't get it, okay. I just don't." 

The glass of chardonnay gets placed on the deck. Castiel looks at him, long and hard. The gaze is sharp, piercing, yet clouded over. As if Castiel is seeing beyond Dean, _into Dean, watching something he'd rather not. Dean waits for the answer, for the inevitable. But after an endless moment, Cas simply blinks, slowly, then shakes his head, and looks away._

"The stars are bright tonight." He says, which doesn't help at all. Dean rolls his eyes in annoyance. Only _he_ could manage to find someone more out of touch with his emotions than himself. "You know," Cas starts abruptly. The taller man's head feels like it's on an axis, with all this back and forth, "When stars supernova, they often take others stars with them. Sometimes whole planets. Galaxies, even. Our sun will do the same. Earth will perish in a blinding burst of hot, angry light, and humanity will cease to exist, one day." 

Dean sniffs the air, but detects no lingering scent of weed. This is all Cas. 

"I don't fear the sun, Dean." He continues, voice steady, and lulling. "If anything, I embrace it. Love it, because it gives us life. Allows us to survive, even though one day, it'll do the opposite and kill us all." 

The man seems to be working himself into a crescendo, turning to Dean with bright blue eyes, an imperative note clear in his voice as their gazes collide. The words being said are plucking at strange strings in Dean's chest, tightening them unbearably, without legitimate cause. Castiel stares at him, hard and unblinking. 

"Why should I hate the sun, for doing something it cannot change, Dean?" 

The words sucker punch Dean straight in the gut. Conclusions are drawn up in his head, too many to name, too many to handle, so he merely looks away instead, sipping his beer, amazed at the brazen tolerance Castiel is offering him. Is it still just an act? It sure as hell doesn't feel like one... 

"Thank you, Cas." Dean offers, unsure of how to respond, if at all. "Just... thanks." 

There's no need for him to voice his thoughts, as Cas simply accepts it, ambiguous and vague. "You're welcome, Dean." 

\--- 

Dean rolls home sometime early in the morning, drunk and giggling with the giddiness that comes with imbibing copious amounts of alcohol. Save for that crazy bit of philosophical rambling on Cas' part, their night out on the water had been, well... _unforgettable_. For Dean anyway. It's hard to imagine it, but he wouldn't put it past Castiel to go to all that trouble in order to fake a friendship. Castiel is clever. Clever and, potentially, _wrathful_. A terrifyingly effective combination. Who knows, he might just be luring Dean in to break his heart later on down the line - but Dean's too hammered to get any of those particular thoughts in a straight line right now. 

"Jesus, Dean, it's two am, where have you been?" 

This is one of the few times Gabriel actually sounds serious. Dean giggles, 'cause the shortass looks like an angry little housewife, hands on his hips as Dean tumbles in from the doorway like the deadbeat husband who stays out bowling and doesn't spend enough time with the kids (Zeke, Chuck and Samandriel). All that's missing is the frilly little apron and the pink rubber gloves. Dean toes off his boots, and nearly falls over in the process. 

"Jeez, _mom_ ," he hiccups, swaying into Gabe's space as the world tilts, "I was only with Cas, _God_." 

Gabriel reels back from Dean's beer-scented breath, a quirk in his brow. "Cas?" He asks. 

"Yeah, y'know. Cas. _Cas-ti-el_. Knew him in high school. I'm tellin' you Gabe, that guy is too damn goo --" 

For a short guy, Gabe sure is strong enough to pin Dean to the nearest wall, hands twisted in the lapels of his jacket like they're fuckin' handles. Dean gapes in surprise, head lolling on his shoulders like a goddamn weeble wobble. 

"You've _seen_ Castiel?" Gabriel says, urgent, and the guy feels like a force of nature, a string of harsh emotion passing through whisky-coloured eyes too fast for Dean's intoxicated mind to interpret . "Dean, you - you have to tell me where." 

There's enough sense in Dean's head to not give any info over straight away. "Why'd'you wanna even _know_ , Gabe?" 

"Damnit Dean I - wait," Dean looks up at the flat tone. Gabe's voice is icy, and his gaze is distant, as if he's not seeing Dean at all, and it's terrifying to hear no humour in Gabe's voice. Like an empty carnival with no lights on. "You _knew_ him?" 

"Yeah." 

"In high school?" 

"Jesus, this an interrogation?" Dean shoves Gabe back by his shoulders. Maybe agression is more concentrated in that shortass body, who knows? " _Yes_ alright, I knew him in high school. So?" 

And that's when Gabe punches him. 

Really, Dean had it coming. The universe owed Dean a concussion, and Gabe had finally done God's work and delivered. Dean had placed his bets on Cas taking the first swing, to be honest, but hey, it wouldn't be the first time he's been so catastrophically _wrong_. 

Somehow Dean ends up on the floor, body buzzing with alcohol and his face throbbing when Gabe's knuckles strike him one last time - then a dark figure lurches over them both, tugging the shorter man clean off and slinging him to the floor. 

"Dammit Benny get the _fuck_ off of me --" 

Benny's leant against the doorway, a squirming Gabriel trapped in the lock of his bulky arms. Benny looks Dean in the eye, tired and troubled - he's often up at this time, having slept a lot during the day. Dean never thought he'd be thankful for that, but he certainly is now 

"You wanna explain, brother?" 

A violent twinge whips Dean across the face as he clutches his jaw; he shakes his head in the negative. "I don't fuckin' know his problem, Ben." 

Gabriel stops struggling, glaring through Benny's chokehold, eyes burning straight through Dean, and that - that is a glare that knows what Dean has done. Knows who he _is_. Even drunk, Dean can see that. "You think you get to act like you're Castiel's fucking _friend_ \--" 

"Whoa whoa, shortstack, let's just sit down and talk it out like the big boys we are, huh?" Benny grumbles, "Jesus, it's like a damn funhouse in here. You're gonna wake the whole house up." 

Mustn't wake the kids, Dean thinks bitterly. 

They end up sat on at the kitchen table, Gabe on one side, Dean on the other, Benny hovering between them like a concerned humming bird, looking ready to kick Gabe in the shins if he tries anything again. 

"You need to take me to see him." Gabriel demands, and both Dean's face and common sense flare up with agression. 

"You think I'm just gonna give some _stranger_ Cas' address --" 

"Dammit Dean, he's my _brother_." 

Silence whips her quiet claws through all of their heads, and Dean feels a lot more sober, all of a sudden. Going back out on the boat sounds great right about now... 

"You - you're Castiel's _brother_?" He bleats weakly. No way that's possible. Coincedences like this were the kind of things that were found in books and crappy tv sitcoms - hell, Cas and Gabe didn't even _look_ similar, how the hell could they even be slightly related? 

Gabriel's nostrils flare as he huffs. Anger doesn't suit him, settling around his shoulders like a too-big sweater. "No, _dickshit_ , I said that for the shits and giggles," Gabe snaps, and he's giving off the aura that he very much wants to rip Dean a new one. Who doesn't, lately. "I've been looking for him since he left Lawrence. Since he left because of _you_." 

"Gabe, give the man a break, he's still pretty hammered --" 

"No!" Gabriel barks at Benny, and the tension increases ten-fold, because nobody shouts at Benny. His gentle southern nature could kick your ass into next week, if it wanted. _No-one_ shouts at Benny. "Don't you get it? My little brother suffered hell because of him - or are we just gonna forget all the stunts Dean pulled in high school?" 

Shit, Gabe knew? All this time, he'd never twigged that engineer Dean and high school Dean were one in the same? But how - 

"I was homeschooled. Private tutor." Gabriel gruffs, thought process way ahead of Dean's intoxicated one. "Trust me, I would've recognised a cocky face like yours anywhere - if I'd known, I would've punched your lights out years ago. Now tell me where the hell my brother is, asshat, and I _won't_ give you another black eye." 

"Whoa whoa, Gabe," Dean holds up a hand, trying to get his fuzzy list of thoughts in order. He needs to convey a series of ideas, calmly, through his reluctant mouth, but he highly doubts that's going to happen. "Gabe, just - listen to me for a sec, okay? Hear me out." 

Gabe sits back in his chair, arms folded, tossing his hair back like an agitated horse. Dean pinches the bridge of his nose. This is all too much. Where to _start_? 

"Look, sure, me and Cas have got a history, but we've --" mended it? Sorted it out? Given each other promise rings? Like _hell_ , "- we're working on it. Cas hated me at the start, don't get me wrong, but _he's_ the one keeping contact with _me_ , Gabe. Fuck, I wanted to leave the guy alone, but he didn't _want_ me to leave him alone. So, for the sake of, hell, I don't know, _Cas' sanity_ , I'm not gonna tell you where is --" 

The shorter man squawks in outrage and makes to stand, but Benny shoves him back down with a hard shove to the shoulder. Dean's swollen face throbs in appreciation. 

"- _yet_." Dean finishes. "I will, I promise Gabe, but Cas is --" a hermit, a drunk, antisocial, so broken that pieces of him are unfixable, "- he's lived alone for a helluva long time now. I don't wanna spring this - spring _you_ \- on him all at once." 

"And who the _fuck_ put you in charge?" Gabe snipes. 

"Nobody." Dean says, watching as Gabe's shoulders deflate - like his brother, Gabe has a tendency to anticipate a fight, Dean's starting to notice. "But you want what's best for Cas, don't you?" 

"Oh, and what's best is _you_?" 

Dean winces. He's as far from 'best' as you can possibly get, especially for Cas. "Hell no. But imagine living _alone_ for three years, never expecting to see your family again, then having your _brother_ turn up on your doorstep, completely out of the blue." As an afterthought, Dean adds: "Might be a shock for you too, Gabe - Cas has changed a lot since... since then." 

Even Benny nods in agreement in that, although he probably doesn't even understand what the fuck is going on. Dean likes Benny. His faith in Dean is unshakeable, despite it's stupidity, and sometimes it's the only thing Dean has left to lean on. 

"Fine." Gabe bites, shoving himself away from the table, "You two are ganging up on me anyways. But I swear to God, Dean, if I don't see Cas within a week, I'm stringing you up, understand? That kid could never make good decisions whenever it was about _Dean Winchester_." 

With that, the guy storms out the room and, by the sounds of it, demolishes the stairs as he pounds up them. Dean sighs, drunken buzz killed by all the heavyweight topics that have just slammed him over the head with a chair. He leans back in his seat, and closes his eyes. 

"You want a steak for that?" Benny asks, and Dean nods. A thick slab of cold meat is slapped into his hand. He shoves it on his eye, and prays the swelling will go down before tomorrow. 

He needs to see Cas again. 

**IX** ****

The morning starts with every intention to see Castiel. 

There's a spare hour before class when he could've seen the man, but Dean needed to tune his guitar - he hasn't used it in weeks, and it's been sitting neglected in the corner, so he shows it some love. 

After class he has a nice, long lunchbreak, and he actually starts walking to Cas' house - but then he sees this brand new food joint on the way and c'mon, he _has_ to try it out, all his running has earned him this, right? 

The new restaurant takes up so much time that suddenly, Dean has class again, so he walks in the opposite direction from Castiel's house entirely, ignoring the relief he feels as he walks. 

'After' turns into 'later' which turns into 'not at all', and because he's weak, Dean takes a day off after that too. 

No Cas, no Gabe; just a long, endless Saturday shift at the Roadhouse, scrubbing tables and fixing the leaky bathroom sink fixtures that Ellen's been bugging him about for months. Working with his hands lets him go blank; being wrist deep in flaky plumbing gives him a big enough distraction that no other meandering thoughts can weedle their way through the cracks. 

At least, that's how it is for, what, the first five hours? 

Then Dean's cleaning out keggers and thinking about alcohol, and alcohol gets him thinking about being drunk, and then being drunk gets him thinking about Castiel and really, it was only a matter of time before a damning chain of thoughts was going to unlock Dean's mind and let the rest of his life filter in. 

Gabriel being Castiel's brother doesn't answer any questions Dean already had - it just _increases_ them, makes the spiderweb of chance all the more strange. Where had they gotten all this damn cash from? Castiel had enough to run away and buy a damn house on the _coast_ for Christ's sake - and Gabe always forks over more than his fair share of money on rent day, as well as the piles of fancy-ass chocolate he splashes his cash on. How had Gabriel known Cas was in Santa Cruz? 

Most important of all - how the hell is Cas going to react? Dean is a resilient motherfucker, but he doesn't know if he can deal with another breakdown on Cas' part. Seeing him drunk was a harrowing enough experience the first time round - what's it gonna be like when he sees his _brother_ and goes off of the deep end? Hell, what if he _literally_ goes off the deep end? Dean shudders. Whoever let Castiel buy a damn house feet from the ocean deserved to have a few teeth knocked out... 

Ellen comes round to check on him after he's been working straight for six hours; she has this _way_ of seeing right through Dean, like he's made of freakin' clingfilm. And because she secretly cares for Dean like a son (c'mon, those slaps and angry glares can only mean unending affection) she asks if Dean'd like to play at tonights' open mic night. Relieved to get his hands out of the plumbing, he gladly takes the offer. 

Music is the one brief passtime that he allows himself to have purely for the pleasure of it; it doesn't give anything to anyone, and he doesn't get a degree in it either - but he can _lose_ himself. He loses himself in the pluck of guitar strings and the quiet chatter of a willing audience. He picks a few favourites - Sweet Home Alabama, Ramble On, Simple Man - and he pays homage to the lyrics as best he can. The music lets his heart settle, and it's almost a physical feeling when a cog in his brain pops back into place and starts whirring again. 

He takes a deep breath, and sings. 

And for the briefest moment, the world seems okay. 

\--- 

Tired, bruised, and cautiously optimistic is how Dean shows up at Castiel's door the next day. It still feels faintly like he went fifty rounds with a meat grinder and lost, and he's as achy as his face looks. 

Karma, he concludes, is a vindictive _bitch_. 

Childishly, he _enjoys_ the fact that as soon as Cas sees his mottled, purpled face, his sleepy demeanour instantly freezes up and chips away into worry. There's a dried blue paint smudge on his chin that Dean's eyes automatically zoom in on as Cas wraps a hand around his arm and yanks him inside, shoving him down onto the futon with a thud. A packet of ice is summoned from the nether and placed in the taller man's hand before he can get in a 'Hello' edgeways. 

"What happened?" Castiel hisses, and he looks - Jesus, he looks _shaken_ , as if one black eye is a sure sign that the world is ending and the four horseman are galloping over the shoreline as they speak. 

Dean puts the ice pack to his eye, even though he doesn't need it anymore, and shrugs, not wanting to go into details just yet. Cas is wearing his dressing gown and as far as Dean knows, that's a sure sign that the guy only just rolled out of bed. It's _midday_ for Christ sakes. 

"Just a fight, Cas," he say in lieu of an answer, letting Cas pull and prod at him as he checks Dean's eye - he'd never pegged Cas as the mother-hen type, but right now he sure feels mothered, "They happen when you live in a house with five other guys. Too much testosterone holed up in one building, I guess." 

"I suppose if they're all beef-headed brutes like you, there was bound to be an altercation." 

It's said in a rough grumble that is so typically _Castiel_ that Dean doesn't know if he's joking or not, but the concern Cas is showing for him warms Dean nonetheless. Warms him so much that he's sure the ice pack is going to melt in his hands. It's such a schoolgirl feeling that Dean has to turn away, before he turns an even deeper shade of red. 

"Uh," he mumbles, picking a bit of loose thread on the futon. Anything to save him from looking at Castiel's face. "Anyway - Cas, I uh - I came here to talk to you about... somethin'. Important. Something important, yeah." 

Castiel raises a dry eyebrow, face deadpan. "You haven't ever been particularly articulate." 

Dean shoves Cas' shoulder, playful, making the guy unbalance where he's sat on his knees and topple to his side. His dressing gown flops around him, and he looks so much like a disgruntled cat that Dean _has_ to laugh. 

The guy's brow bunches, nose wrinkling, as if Dean is the most offensive thing to ever exist. The taller man's resulting laugh is cut short with an _'oof'_ when a strong hand hits him square in the chest, flooring him on the futon in an instant. 

Their eyes connect, and the challenge flashes through their gazes faster than lightning. 

"You don't wanna do this Cas." Dean grins, shifting forwards, "Don't poke the beehive." 

"Perhaps I want the honey." And Dean doesn't have the brainspace to investigate the connotations of that sentence, because then he has a lapful of dressing-gown clad man-child upon him, and all defenses are _up_ ; he anticipates the tackle like the true athlete he is, tossing Cas down onto his back on the futon and pinning his hands above his head. 

"Ha -" Dean gasps, "See what did I tell y --" 

Then Cas does this - this twisty _thing_ with his whole body, flipping them over with a thud, a knee pinning each of Dean's arms to his sides, the solid weight of Cas' body pressing Dean hard into the futon, winding him. He feels the low hum of laughter vibrate through his bones. 

"I've had a long time to learn how to defend myself, Dean." And isn't _that_ just the proverbial KO that Dean _didn't_ need. Cas wanted to learn how to defend himself. Against assholes like Dean who don't know when to give in, when to end it - 

"Stop that." 

Dean refocuses on the figure above him, brow furrowing. "Stop what?" 

"Overanalyzing everything I say." Castiel sighs, and Dean watches in awe as the whole man seems to soften with the little sound. "I didn't mean it like - like what you're thinking." 

"Like you know what I'm thinkin' --" 

"You're thinking that I've learned how to defend myself with you in mind." And well, doesn't that just shut Dean up? His mouth clicks closed with a snap. Cas _should've_ had him in mind. After... after every single time Dean'd cornered the shaking, light-haired boy in the gym room showers. Shoved his cock down that pale stretch of throat and _enjoying_ it - enjoying the choked, muffled sounds he'd gotten as a result, loving the tight twist of hair around his fingers, relishing the shake of Castiel's body knelt before him. Fearful. _Terrified_. Day after day... 

That should be enough motivation for anybody to want to learn how to protect themselves. 

Out of nowhere, a finger traces the tender swelling around Dean's eye, and he looks up, befuddled, as Cas seems to lose himself in the touch. "Dean, I won't lie - the first time we met here, on that beach, I wanted to punch you until you bled --" 

"Make a guy feel at home, why don't you." 

"- but I think you're beating yourself up enough for the both of us, don't you?" 

And he does that _look_ , that one that makes butterflies soar in Dean's stomach, where his gaze finds Dean's with a brute, fond honesty, burning like forest fire, and it heats the taller man from the inside until he feels cosy, his cheeks are red, and he's fit to burst. 

No way in hell Dean's allowed to feel like this. No way in hell is he supposed to take those kind of words from Castiel Novak, _feel_ these things for Castiel Novak, the kid he bullied for more than _four damn years_ , the kid who's got mental scars deep enough to fall into and such an empty life that there are no damn pictures in his house, the kid who only has paint and poetry for company and nothing else because he's all alone in the damn world. 

Castiel doesn't fight him when he sits up, but he refuses to move from Dean's side - it's like the guy's got some kind of emotional homing beacon, as if he can taste the self-loathing in the air, and he can trace the scent right on back to Dean. Guy's a damn _bloodhound_. 

"Dean..." 

"You know how I feel about this, Cas." Dean cuts in - he's feeling it again, the strain of their closeness. In another life, they would've been good friends, maybe even something more - but this is _Dean's_ life, the one he fucked up at the beginning and is now paying for in full. "I just - you switched gears so damn _quickly_. What I did -" Dean drops subtlety at this point, trying to get Cas to return to his senses, to push Dean away again, "- hell, I fuckin' _raped_ you, Cas, and I don't get why you're --" 

A hand cups the side of Dean's face, and a flash of stony blue is all the warning Dean gets before his chin is yanked to the right and Castiel is _kissing him_ , hard and urgent, hot mouth sweeping and wet, and Dean can only fall back on an elbow as Cas pushes him down, his hand resisting the urge to wrap his fingers in that dark head of hair, scared of mimicking a memory long passed. 

There's a blip in the back of Dean's mind, telling him that this is so definitely _wrong_ , that this shouldn't be happening, especially after his most recent chain of thoughts, and for the first time in his damn life, Dean listens to his reason over his dick, yanking his mouth away from Cas' before this can get any worse. 

"Are you drunk?" Is what he blurts, of all things, because that's the only reason that makes sense in his blithering mind. He didn't taste any alcohol in the kiss, but, "Is that what this is? Cas you're making a mistake --" 

"Don't tell me what I'm doing, Dean Winchester." Shit, he only breaks out the last name business when he's _seriously serious_ about something. It's still as hot as it was when he said it the first time around. Castiel's voice softens afterwards, and his thumb sends electricity through Dean's skin where it rubs circles against his cheek. "Do you want this? Because I do." 

Straight to the point. "Cas --" 

"Answer the question." 

"Yeah," Dean gives in, caves like a house of cards, and Castiel tugs him in for another mind-blowing kiss, pressing Dean down against the futon, his slim hips slotting in-between Dean's spread legs like it's the most natural thing in the world, like they do this all the time and it was meant to be and all that other romcom shit that Dean doesn't have the time for. 

His neck is being peppered with kisses, hot little presses of those plush, plush lips - he goes with every movement, letting Cas guide and set the pace, too afraid to reciprocate. Dean doesn't know whether to detach himself from the feel of Cas' nails scraping over his ribs, or embrace it. There are two sides of him warring; one that wants to etch this into stone, be able to recall every touch Castiel blesses him with - the other begging for him to detach himself, to forget as it happens, just so he can spare himself the pain later on down the road when he realises that he'll never get to do this again. 

But it's all just so damn _good_. 

There's clothes, then there's less clothes, then there's _them_ , panting and sweating and _clutching_ , two animal shapes rutting against each other, feral and hungry, lips and skin and hands, and when it's over, Dean collapses back onto the futon beside Cas, staring, unseeing, at the ceiling, wondering if he's ever felt regretful about having sex before now. 

\--- 

"I need to talk to you about your brother." 

Definitely not the best topic for after-glow chat, judging by the way Castiel's entire body jolts with surprise. 

"What?" And Dean winces at the abrupt pitch as it smashes through the dim, honeyed glow that had been left in the wake of sex. Dean misses the feeling with a passion, but he has to get this over with, before he makes another mistake worse than the one he'd just made. 

"Gabriel." Dean turns and props himself up on his elbow - he needs to gauge Cas' reaction to this, needs to get some idea of how he'd react with his brother showing up on his damn doorstep. "He's been looking for you. Since you left." 

Castiel looks distant, eyes concealing a hundred different thoughts as he stares up at the ceiling, square hands folded beneath a bed of dark hair. Contemplative. Unreadable. 

"How did you find out? About... him." He asks, and Dean's glad for the cue to keep talking. Silence isn't something he knows how to deal with right now. 

"Heh. Funny story, actually. He's been living with me since I moved here, pretty much." He would've laughed at Cas' wide-eyed expression, had the topic at hand not been so damn delicate. "Came home late, accidentally mentioned you, and uh," he gestures to his eye, "This happened." 

Castiel looks fucking _appalled_. " _Gabriel_ gave you that?" 

"Don't blame him." Dean shrugs, "He's the only person who's reacted the _normal way_ , Cas. If I were in his shoes I woulda done the same damn thing." Hell, if anybody did to Sam what Dean did to Castiel, the guy wouldn't be walking, that's for sure. As far as he's concerned, Gabe showed him mercy, if the black eye is all the penance he's going to receive. 

"He wants to see you." Dean says softly, "And soon. Otherwise he's gonna make the other eye match." He laughs dryly, trying to ease some of the tension off of Cas' face, but the mention of further violence only makes him tense up further. 

So quiet that Dean almost doesn't hear it, Cas whispers. 

"Does... Does he hate me?" 

"Fuck no!" Dean bats that insecurity away with defiance - fast, angry defiance. No way in hell Gabe hates Cas, not if he's been tracking him _religiously_ for the past two years. Besides, hating Cas? Impossible. "Protective maybe; you shoulda seen it, Cas, the guy wanted to chop my friggin' head off." 

"But how did he find me?" Cas sits up now, body language all taut and _off_ , and it makes the hairs on the back of Dean's neck stand on edge. There's wrongness lingering in the air, thick and cloying. "My real name isn't on any records here - Dean, I'm not even in the _phonebook_. If he's found out then - then _father's_ found out, and if father comes _here_ \--" 

"Whoa whoa, hey," Dean throws a blanket over the fire running through Cas' veins by sitting up and slinging a leg over his lap. Personal boundaries, he's still not sure of the rules around those, not sure if this is a fling or if Cas wants more - either way, he relaxes when Dean soothes his fingers across those broad, rigid shoulders. "Why's your dad such bad news? Maybe he misses you too, y'know?" 

A dark, stormy look passes over Castiel's face; the same look he gave Dean all those months ago, when he'd spoken Castiel's real name as they'd sat in the waves. Goosebumps prickle up Dean's forearms, foreboding, as if his very _skin_ is intimidated. 

"Father was...difficult." His voice grinds into a robotic, unfamiliar tone that grates on Dean's eardrums; the taller man's brain gets stuck on that phrase. Difficult? None of the conclusions that Dean draws from that end with anything good. In some desperate bid to get them both back to earth and out of their heads, he runs his hands down Castiel's back, daring to bury his nose against the crook of Castiel's neck, breathing in the warm, human scent of the shorter man and letting it ground him. If this is the last time Dean gets to do this, then he's damn well gonna fill his quota before his time runs out. 

"You'll be okay." He assures, unsure if he believes that himself. He doesn't miss the way Castiel curls his arms around him, hands seeking the basic comfort of another warm body. If Dean squeezes his eyes shut, he can pretend the brush of skin is a fond, familiar touch - a touch that makes him think of home, of mom's apple pie, of long trips to South Dakota with dad and his brother, singing along to Bon Jovi and fighting for shotgun. Dean can kid himself that Castiel is a constant - that he's someone who Dean can make a home with. 

His eyes snap open when he realizes just how far gone he is. 

Dean cuts off all these toxic thoughts before they can begin to fester and grow. "Gabe is just worried about you." He says, reminding himself of the situation, of who he _is_. Nothing more than a quick lay. Lucky to even be that. "Worried about me, especially. Said you could never make decisions about me, whatever the hell that means." 

If anything, those words have the complete _opposite_ of the desired affect; Castiel's entire body freezes up beneath Dean's fingers, his hands curled into clammy claws where they rest at Dean's thighs. Even his _breath_ seems to stutter. 

"...What else did he tell you?" 

That makes Dean look up. "...Nothing." He says slowly, watching Cas with a critical eye, but the shorter man gives nothing away, face a blank, stone mask. "Was there anything else to tell...?" 

" _No_." Castiel answers too quickly, too sharp, and he shoves Dean off of his lap without a hint of warning, vanishing off into the bedroom in three seconds flat. Proving Dean's assumption that he had, in fact, just been used as a means to get off. 

Payback is a bitch, he thinks. A coldhearted bitch. 

"Tell Gabriel to come over in a few days." Castiel calls from the bedroom, voice a dozen kinds of fragile. Then he adds. "...alone." 

Dean's smart enough to recognize a dismissal when he hears one. There's something he's missing here, something important, but he can't push for answers with Cas like he would with anyone else, because Castiel is unpredictable - God knows what'd happen if Dean backed him into a corner and asked about things that didn't want to be answered. 

With a sigh and a ruined post-orgasmic haze, Dean pulls on his clothes and makes a beeline for the door, casting one last, longing look at the messy futon before him, wondering how many people have been there before him, who else has felt Cas' hands on them, wondering what it'd be like to lie with Cas in an actual _bed_. 

"See you around?" He calls into what feels like an empty house. 

He doesn't get an answer. 

**X**

The days that follow are those packed, busy kind that are less like days, more like one big endless blur. School then work then school then work. Dean leaves Cas' address on a scrap of paper and slips it under Gabe's door. He hasn't heard from either brother in days, which is an impressive feat, considering the fact that he fucking lives with one of them. 

More times than he'd like to admit, he pulls his phone out of his pocket to text Cas, but he always gets about two words in before he loses his nerve and deletes the whole message. Most people don't pin brash, loudmouth Dean Winchester as a coward - but if he can't even build up the courage to send a damn text, then what the hell is he? 

_Considerate_ ? A voice that sounds suspiciously like mom pops up in his head, and he bats it away, feeling uncomfortable. Mom's always seen the best in everything her eldest son has done, but he knew she'd damn well whoop his ass into next week if she knew about his and Cas' school history. 

Now though, considerate might be pretty accurate. Castiel needs space. He'd made that much clear when he'd abandoned Dean literally moments after fucking around with him. Dean's still a little sore about that, but the Gabriel conversation had thoroughly rattled Cas, so really, he shouldn't be surprised that he'd got the boot after bringing it up. And for Christ's sake, did he even have the _right_ to be a forlorn over that? Sure, he'd been a quick roll in the hay for Cas - but hey, at least Cas hadn't pinned him down in a shower stall and fucked his mouth without so much as a damn 'please'. 

Dean doesn't linger on those washed-out memories - he's never given himself the time to. There'd always been that static tension, he remembers, the kind of energy that could've become either fight or fuck. And Dean - Dean had thought with his dick instead of his brain. He knew that even back then he'd had some kind of - hell, of attraction, to Cas, light-haired or not. Attraction, perhaps, that acted as some form of sinister fodder for every one of Dean's attacks. 

All those years ago, he'd cornered Cas, and Cas had just laid back and _let_ him. 

The whole notion of 'not-consensual' alone has been enough to send him heaving to the bathroom on more than one occasion, and he doesn't want to repeat the experience by prodding at the boundaries that he'd so meticulously built around his mind. 

Instead of shower stalls and dripping water, he focuses on bigger, more important things, things that are worthy of being used as distractions. Questions. Yeah, questions were a good place to start. Had Gabe seen Castiel yet? There's a question that's bugging the hell out of Dean and begging for attention. He hasn't heard a peep out of either of them for days. Had a shitstorm gone down? Had Cas taken it badly? God, had something happened? 

Dean's thumbs are hovering over the Cas' contact as soon as the thought occurs to him, but he doesn't start typing - there's no need to. A text is already there, received nearly ten minutes ago, from Castiel himself. 

**I need you.**

Nothing else. No 'oh me and my big bro have had a big, nice, family reunion, and we're going out for a cold one, want to come?' - just that. _I need you_. Fuck, for Castiel - emotional wall of China _Castiel_ \- to outright admit that? Worry wraps around Dean, cold as it sinks its fangs into his skin. What the hell had happened? 

\--- 

The glass patio doors are already unlocked when Dean finally gets there, and he pushes them open, urgent, pulse thumping so hard in his neck that he can hear it in the back of his head. A sense of immediate, panicked _threat_ has made a comfy little niche in Dean's chest, wrapping a band of hot iron around his lungs and squeezing, like an enthusiastic boa constrictor. The doors slide open far too slowly for Dean's liking; he bolts in, expecting something awful, terrible - but finding... nothing. There's no Cas on the futon, or in the untouched kitchen. Dean goes to check the bedroom - 

\- and then a hand grabs him by the collar. 

"Fuck me." The voice is imperative, fast and hard and demanding. There's a thud as Dean is thrown back onto the bed, bouncing on the mattress before he can even take a breath. Castiel is there - God, he's right _there_ , naked and hard above Dean as he straddles the taller man. "Dean, I need --" 

"Whoa, fuck - hold on!" He grabs Cas' hands where they've began working furiously on Dean's zipper, wrapping his fingers around the shorter man's narrow wrists and pulling them up, away from his damn crotch, "Cas - what the hell, man?" 

"I'd rather not talk about it." Castiel answers and - fuck, call Dean suspicious, but it looks like Cas is trying to angle his face away from the taller man's prying gaze, an action that sets Dean on edge immediately. Castiel is all forward-facing, no-nonsense confidence, strong and honest like a seastorm, unabashed and sure of his actions. He doesn't _hide_. 

The taller man curls upwards before Cas can duck away, cupping a hand around that stubbled jaw and tipping his face up - and God, Dean hadn't imagined it. Cas' eyes are red, puffy and clenched shut as Dean traces over his brow. 

"Shit." Dean runs a thumb over a high cheekbone, "Shit Cas, c'mon - come here --" 

"I don't want to be coddled." Castiel bites, pushing away the arm that had been trying to wrap itself around his middle, "I want you to fuck me and make me forget the world exists." 

Dean frowns. Castiel is so damn _disconnected_. "Cas..." 

"Dean, please." He opens those red-cracked eyes, the colour blue bright and emphasised. His hands tremble along with his voice as he runs his shaking fingertips over Dean's chest. "Just... get me out of my head. Please." 

Even Dean can't deny an honest plea like that. 

"Okay," he nods, "Okay. What..." Dean swallows down his tentativeness. Castiel needs assurance, a pillar to lean on. Dean doesn't have time for nerves. "What do you need, Cas?" 

"Anything." Castiel whispers, gaze somewhere in the distance, miles and years away from where Dean is at. "Anything you can give me." 

_Everything_ , Dean thinks, but doesn't say. Never says. "Okay." 

He leans in then, and everything explodes into a molten mess of sweetness and bitterness and _Castiel_. The world is forgotten in their wake, meaningless between the clash of their bodies. 

This time, it's different. It's not just a quick rough and tumble, a couple of messy handjobs exchanged on a futon; this time, Castiel trembles as Dean opens him up with careful, solid, slick fingers, and his mouth falls open in a silent scream when they're finally together, clutching at Dean with fierce hands, fierce eyes, fierce mouth. Dean pays special attention to that long, dark tattoo - they're sea waves, he can see now, deep blue and charcoal black, running over Cas' shoulder and cascaading down the bumps of his ribs, anointing the jut of his hipbone, strengthening the connection between ocean and man. He kisses that strange, circular scar, sucks a bruise over it, and Castiel's hands rake themselves through Dean's hair, claiming Dean right on back. 

This feels endless. Just them. Dean and Castiel. Sea waves can be heard in the distance, Castiel's nails score lines either side of Dean's spine as he rocks forwards, a steady momentum that makes fireworks go off behind Dean's eyes and draws beautiful, low sounds from the long column of Castiel's throat. They wind into the taller man's ears, ribbons of silky-smooth sound wrapping around his mind, soothing, like verbal aloe. 

" _Dean_..." A hand runs over Dean's collarbone, warm palm covering the black tattoo below it - a dark star encircled by equally dark flames. Fingernails scrape it, trace it, imploring. Dean pulls his head up from the crook of Castiel's neck to look at the other man, the awed expression on his face dumbfounding Dean even further. 

"You ok?" He asks, breathless, confused as to why _he's_ the centre of that amazed look. What he's done to earn it. Castiel bites his lip, before wrapping his hand in Dean's hair and pulling him down into another deep, searing kiss. 

He comes crashing apart in Dean's hands moments after, and Dean follows willingly, his heart beating wildly in the cage of his ribs, like a frantic bird that wants nothing more than to escape. 

\--- 

Someone is banging on the front door. 

Well - more like _ramming_. 

The disruptive noise dislodges Dean from a fitful sleep curled at Cas' side. The other man is still out cold, so Dean stumbles out of bed with a lurch, determined to stop that damn noise before it wakes Cas from his sleep. This is one of the few times Castiel actually looks peaceful, brow smoothed of trouble and eyes fluttered closed; Dean wants to keep him like this forever; hold him in his cupped hands like a fragile pool of water, the threat of him slipping away kept at bay by the tight mesh of Dean's fingers. 

Stubble brushes his fingers - he shouldn't let himself linger like this, with fond touches to Castiel's skin. It's behaviour reserved for people who love each other, and Castiel doesn't love Dean. The temptation to touch, however, is too much, too _open_ , and Dean lets himself trace fingertips over the line of the man's jaw. Because he's a self-absorbed bastard. 

Then the door gets throttled again, and Dean curses, ripping himself away from Cas and sprinting into the living room 

"You're _sleeping_ with him?" 

Dean should've known better than to have opened the door shirtless - much less opened the door with freaking _Gabriel_ stood there. 

He looks feral, staring Dean down like he wants to scoop out his eyeballs and eat them for breakfast. The look doesn't cow Dean, though. For the first time in a long, long time, he's fucking _livid_ , he has something to fight for. Castiel in the next room over, with sore eyes and body, who'd pleaded for Dean (of all people) to make him forget; all because of the man in front of him. Brother or not, Gabe made Castiel hurt, and that fact awakens something primal in Dean, an instinct ordering him to protect the person he loves. 

Ignoring the connotations of that last thought, Dean leans in through the doorway and drops his voice down to a low hiss, for Cas' sake. "What the hell are you doing here?" He growls, "Haven't you done enough damage for one day?" 

Gabriel's eyes flicker up and down Dean's body in what looks like disgust, before casting a glance into the house beyond. "Not enough, if you're still around." 

Jesus, what had they talked about? What the fuck was Dean missing? Dean turns his glare back to the other man. "Jesus Gabe, he _asked_ for me, okay? And that's weird as hell, but it's true, and you have no fucking right putting your nose in your brother's own damn business." 

Gabe shoves Dean back and ploughs through the doors, a harsh gust of salty air following him in, his voice a low growl. "He doesn't know what's good for him." 

Dean grits his teeth, fists shaking at his sides. Gabe's a good friend, a good guy, really, once you looked passed all this Castiel crap - Dean doesn't want to hurt him, but if he gets one more damn step closer to Cas' room, Dean won't hesitate. "I think Cas is smart enough to make his own decisions, don't you?" 

"Not when they're about _you_." 

That wording again. This isn't just to do with him, it's _about_ him. "For fuck sake - Gabe, look at me -" the shorter man does, "I owe him this, alright? I owe him anything he fuckin' wants because I fuckin' traumatised him when we were kids. If he wants to sleep with me, I'm never gonna say no, because I don't have the right to deny him anything, okay?" 

"You don't have the right?" 

Both of them turn, frozen and wide-eyed, as if they're attached to un-oiled hinges. Cas is there, of course he is, all mussed hair and bleary eyed with sleep, wrapped up in that same blue dressing gown as always. He looks so much smaller than usual, looks like he could do with Dean's arms wrapped around him to complete the picture. The sight of him makes Dean all melty round the edges, like ice at room temperature. What it'd be like, to wake up to that, everyday for the rest of his life... 

"What do you mean, you don't have the _right_?" And Dean's melty feeling melts right off, because that's Cas' _angry_ voice, Dean would know it a mile away. Castiel is pissed off, and he's _far_ scarier than Gabriel could ever hope to be like this. It's bad, because even with Castiel in this mood, Dean can still feel himself fall even farther for him. 

"Cas --" 

"Let go of him, Gabriel." Castiel snarls, and Gabe relents his grip on Dean's jacket with a huff, allowing the entirety of that antarctic gaze to zero in on Dean's very soul, freezing it solid and ready to crack. Castiel strides up to him, sleepiness falling off of him like dusty cobwebs as he blooms into Dean's space, eyes narrow and burning. "You mean," he starts, and Dean had expected brimstone vocals, maybe shouting - but Cas' voice is quiet. Vulnerable, even. That vulnerability frightens Dean more than any yelling ever could. "All of this -" he gestures between them, and Dean doesn't miss the way Cas' hand lingers over his chest, as if he wants to reach out and touch, like he did just a few hours ago, when they were bare and wrapped in bedsheets, "- has happened because you don't feel that you have the right - to 'deny' me?" 

No - well, yes, but Dean wants it, _God_ does he want it - 

"When you said you wanted this - you faked it all?" Now there's fire, licking up Castiel's throat, and Dean reaches out, blind, needing to touch some part of Cas before he loses him again. Castiel pulls away from his hand, letting Dean drown instead. "Everything you've done - everything you've _said_ \- has been some twisted form of _penance_ because you still can't forgive yourself? You blatantly _lied_ to me." 

No, no, Dean _needs_ him, can't Cas see that? Castiel is so much smarter than him, he reads about English fucking _poets_ in his spare time for crying out loud, how can't he see that Dean _needs_ him, needs him so much that it fucking _hurts_ \- 

"Get out." 

No. "Cas --" 

"Get out." He sneers again - his hands are shaking. Dean wants to wrap them up in his own, smooth out the tremors and trace every callous. "You're a coward and a liar, Dean Winchester, and I do not want you _in this house_. Get **out**." 

The bark, the boldness in his voice - it's serrated, instant in the way it severs clean through Dean's heartstrings. The strong muscle loses its shape, a formless, shapeless, broken thing slumped in his chest, beating out of time with the rest of him. Hotness burns the back of his eyes, because this time, Cas isn't pushing Dean away - he simply just doesn't want Dean _here_. 

With a hard gulp, he lets his eyes run once over Castiel beautiful shape, the furrow above those fiery eyes, the ways his shoulder have drawn up around him, castle drawbridges being pulled closed. Dean would rather Castiel be angry with him for the rest of his life than to leave him. 

His blood pumps as he ducks his gaze, slumping past Cas to the still-open door, feet dragging. He doesn't even bother to take his shoes as he flees to the shoreline. 

Dean had let himself hope. Stupid, stupid Dean had fallen for the one man he couldn't ever truly have, and the world looked a dull shade of grey now because of it. 

Waves crash onto the sand, looking dark and steely as clouds swarm overhead, and Dean keeps walking until Cas' little house on the hill is a distant memory, and his skin prickles from the February chill. 

**XI** ****

Good old Jack. Dean's only friend. 

Locking himself in his room is a bit of a tween move - kind of selfish too, seeing as Benny is stuck downstairs for the rest of the night, but then again Dean's already selfish, why not just add to the pile? - but at this point, Dean can't pool enough of himself back together to actually _care_. The stereo is blasting something, might be Zep, Dean's too smashed to follow along with it, his mind banging like a drum within the confines of his skull. 

Once again, he'd lost Castiel, and just like last time, he's only got himself to blame. 

It's strange, losing Cas now. Call it emotional growth, but Dean - dammit, he'd come to really fucking care for the guy. For the guy with the cool attitude and the even cooler blue eyes and damn talented fingers and beautiful paintings and - fuck. Dean _loved him_. Losing Cas now was like losing a front tooth; the gap was noticeable and sore, but Dean couldn't resist running his tongue over it, even if it hurt, just to get an imprint of what it had been like. For the briefest, most scarce moment, he'd held Castiel in his arms, kissed him even if it hadn't meant anything, pulled him out of the fucking _ocean_ \- Dean needs Cas, messed up flaws and all. 

There were so many differences between the Cas of now and the one in Dean's memory, and he'd gone and managed to grow obsessed with them both - then scare them away right after. 

His bed creaks with the weight of the world as he lies back on it. The ceiling is spinning, round and round, a carousel of creamy white, and Dean watches it, wanting to feel the sick pulse of nausea over the lingering pain of loss. He just ends up feeling both at once. A groan claws its way out of his throat. 

Eventually, he falls asleep, purely out of the desire to not be conscious. 

\--- 

Teenage Dean stares him down through the water, grins another predatory smirk, shark-like in the ocean. 

" _Told you._ " He says. 

\--- 

The pounding of his door is what wakes him. It brings back the memory of yesterday, and he groans, shoving his head into his pillow and clenching his eyes shut against the oncoming headache. His tongue is thick in his mouth, dry like carpet, and the distinct urge to throw up courses through his body until he fights it off, and sits up. 

"Dean, open the door." 

Fuck, it's not even Benny. It's _Gabe_. Benny, Dean could deal with. Hell, grumpy _Zeke_ , Dean could deal with. Not Gabe. Not right now. Not with yesterday is still so fresh in his head. 

"Fuck off." He grumbles - it's more a slurred noise than actual discernable words, but Dean is in the deep end, drowning, and he doesn't give a shit. 

"Fine," Gabe snaps, "If you won't open it for me, open it for Cas." 

No way. No way is he here. No way is he - 

Dean shoves the door open, wild-eyed and sick with hope - but it's just Gabe. Something dangerously close to shame sits on his face, but Dean doesn't care about what Gabe's feeling right now. Gabe started this, in his mind. Dean provided the oil, Gabe was the lit match, and now Cas had burned away in a too-brief, too-beautiful glimpse of flame, burning them all to ashes as he went. 

Nausea comes back to Dean in full. "What?" He gripes, "What the fuck do you want? You've done enough, haven't you?" 

Gabe doesn't provide an answer. "We need to talk." And the pushy bastard just walks right on in. Dean would've swung, a punch long coming, but his vision is goopy and so are his muscles. There's no energy for a fight, his reserves are empty, bone dry, so Dean slams the door shut and sits on Benny's bed, the closest, and watches as Gabe sits on Dean's, elbows on knees, head hung, fingers twitching. 

"Dean," Gabe starts, and really what the fuck could he say that could make Dean feel any worse? Wasn't this punishment enough? 

"Castiel... Castiel loves you." 

Well. Shit. 

"He's had it bad for years." 

Well. Double shit. 

"No matter what you did, he still felt that way, and he hated himself for it." Gabe sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Every twisted thing you did to him just made him want you more. He never saw the sense to fucking fight back like he damn well should've. Said that he saw something - that he knew there was good in you. God knows what made him think that, but he saw it and he fell for it." 

Dean blinks at the rush of information. Then he blinks again. Then Dr Daniels decides to come back for a visit, and he has no choice but to bolt to the bathroom. 

Years. Years and _years_ and Cas had... the whole time... _God_... 

Sickeningly, it all suddenly makes sense. Painful, crucial sense - the last piece of the puzzle. The sudden switch of attitudes Cas has had towards him over the last month, the abrupt way in which a storm had cleared into a calm blue sky around them; Castiel had seen his chance to have something he'd wanted years ago, and he'd snatched it - only for Dean to throw it all back in his face. This hadn't been Cas paying off an unspoken debt for his life - this had been Castiel _reciprocating._

Even at his worst, Castiel wanted him. In _highschool_. God how was that even possible? 

Another dry heave wracks his body, but there's nothing left to give, no bile in his stomach, and he wished his mind worked like his gut did. Toxic thoughts, thrown up and out of him, gone forever - it'd make life a hell of a lot easier. 

"You alive?" 

Dean leans his head against white porcelain, insides churning like an acidic ocean. Gabe's turning his headache into a fucking _tumor_. 

"That long?" He croaks, throat cracked around the words, "That fucking long and he - he _still_ let me back in? Even after he ran he let me back into his fucking _life_ , Gabe. Jesus..." 

"Like I said," and Gabe doesn't sound angry - just tired. Dean can relate. "He could never make decisions about you. If it hadn't been for dad, he probably would've never left at all." 

That... is a new one. Dean forces himself on his ass, swinging to look at Gabe as he props himself against the patch of wall between toilet and sink. 

"But - I thought I _was_ the reason Castiel left. What's your dad got to do with it?" 

Gabe's face darkens then, and it's the first time Dean has seen anything that looks remotely relatable between the brothers; for the briefest second, he can imagine them being siblings. 

"Wasn't the best guy in the world," he leans against the bathroom doorframe with a shoulder, the casual pose destroyed by how tightly Gabe is wound. "Used to beat the shit out of us. Cas was smaller then. Skinny as a rake. Softspoken too. Guys like you and dad saw him as an easy target, and I guess he couldn't take it anymore." 

A red, circular patch of scarred skin swirls in Dean's mind, and he hadn't thought he could throw up again, but his body proves that assumption wrong in seconds. 

_A cigarette burn_ . 

How the fuck is Cas still functioning? 

"I tracked him here almost as soon as he left." Gabe continues from behind him. "Mom's parents were sitting on a _fortune_ when they died. 'Course, she passed away years ago, so they split it between me and Cas, and as soon as the money hit his bank account, he ditched -" Gabe clicks his fingers. "- just like that. Good thing the idiot still doesn't know how to clear his browser history; he bought a one way ticket to Santa Cruz and I followed him right on down." 

"But you still didn't find him..." 

"Kid was smart, what can I say?" And he sounds regretful now, the displaced guilt of an older brother who'd failed as a sibling. Dean knows the tone well. "Changed his contacts. Changed bank accounts. Hell, he even changed his _name_ ; you know what it says on his boating license? _James Clarence_." Gabriel laughs, like it's some form of joke that Dean's not in on. "He's clever, but he ain't all that creative." 

"There a point to all this, Gabe?" Dean grumbles as he sits up one last time, praying that his body gives up with this whole vomiting shtick, "Or can I go back to puking in peace?" 

"The _point_ , Dean, is that I want Cas to be _happy_." Gabe hangs his head, huffs out a breath like it's the hardest thing he's ever done, "And for some godforsaken reason, you do that." 

Dean squints. Where's all that wild anger gone? The protective older brother that had gifted Dean with a blackeye? Gabe can see the questions running through Dean's head, and he saves him the shame of having to ask why. 

"What you said - back at Cas'." Gabe says by way of answer, "You sounded fucking _broken_ , man. And hell, I've known you for two years - you're a good guy, even if you weren't before." 

A decent guy, maybe. Average. Not good. Never good. 

"He thinks you've changed, I guess." 

_You've changed, Dean._

The echo of Castiel's voice kind of makes Dean want to cry, so he shoves it away, lurching to his feet, not liking the way Gabe seems to be looming over him at the moment. His hand flies back to rest against the sink, and he sags against, wanting nothing more than to fall back to sleep. He flushces the toilet with a wince, running a hand over his face. 

"I'm not good for him." He says, and what? No, no, he _needs_ Cas, why the fuck is he forcing more distance between them? "Gabe you know I'm - I can't be good for him. I can't be." 

Gabe shrugs. "Tough shit. He wants you." 

"He shouldn't!" Dean's body staggers forward - he aims to grab Gabriel by the lapels and shake, but his world tilts and he misses by whole inches, "Gabe this is - this is nuts. What would make him want me? Hell, you know the shit I've done to him, the stuff I put him through - what does he see in me that I don't?" 

Gabriel glares at him, shoving him back hard, making the taller man sway on the bathroom tile. "Like hell I know! You were a grade A asshole, Dean, and getting close to being one again. But right now? You gotta suck it up. Big time." 

Amongst the sickness, a pulse of bright, hot anger zips behind Dean's eyes, blinding him. "You don't get it!" Because he doesn't. Neither does Dean. Gabe threatened him at first, tried to force him to back off - now he's forcing Dean to dive back in? What the hell? "I can't do it, Gabe. Cas wants me to fucking _want_ him." 

"Well?" Gabriel barks, "Do you?" 

"The hell kind of question is that? Of course I do!" 

"Then what the fuck is stopping you?!" 

Dean's mouth snaps shut. 

...What _was_ stopping him? 

Gabe sighs, all that coiled up fight draining out of him. "Look, Dean - you might not be what Cas needs right now, but you're what he _wants_ , and that's all I care about." His hand hovers out between them, unsure, and then warily pats Dean's shoulder. "You need to go back to him. Discuss a few... things." 

Dean swallows, stows his crap, and blinks hard, "Okay." He nods, more to himself. "Okay Gabe." 

Gabe presses his lips together in a world-weary smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Just so you know - hurt him again, I'll kill you. Also, brush your teeth." His nose wrinkles. "You stink." 

With that, the man walks away, leaving Dean to stew in his own juices. His mind is thrumming with everything. Just... _everything_. His headache throbs, and he squeezes his temples, trying to relieve the pressure. The room spins, so he stops. He stops and he stands there, and he breathes. 

And he won't admit it, but maybe he prays a little, too. 

**XII** ****

Castiel is unpredictable. Rushing, like the waves, pushing and pulling at the world around him, like it owes him, but nobody knows what to give; he ripples with a calming peace during times of silence, and roars with anger in others - an anger with no particular audience in mind, simply being angry for the sake of _feeling_. 

He's endless, a whole ocean, and it's scary to be loved by something as never-ending as the sea. _Someone_ as never-ending as the sea. To be told that Dean's loved by a man far beyond his comprehension - it's enough to overwhelm anyone. More than once, he'd nearly drowned in those blue, blue eyes, and he thinks that one day, he might - and when that day finally comes, he won't care one bit. 

Sand shifts around his bare feet as he toes the shoreline, the water thin and foamy at his soles, tracing his feet as warily as he's walking. The trek towards that little white house amongst sandy dunes and dry grass is endless. Even when he sees it over the shore his legs stutter, as if his whole body is trying to persuade him to turn back, to withdraw from this whole debacle before it comes crashing down around his ears. He almost obeys the instinct. 

But he _wants_ this. _Cas_ , wants this. And that's enough to push him on. 

\--- 

Dean knocks on the glass patio doors with trembling hands. It's only been hours but now that he's here, face to face with his fears, it feels like his whole damn life has been building up to this. His heart jumps when the blinds are pushed aside and the house is opened, and for the briefest moment he allows hope to bubble and expand in his chest - 

And then the door gets slammed in his face. 

\--- 

Dean goes back. Day after wretched day. 

Each time the reaction is the same; door slammed, not home, blinds shut. It's driving Dean so far up the wall that after his fourth rejection, he decides that it's time to stop waiting for Cas. Whether he wants him to or not, Dean is going to hound him down until Castiel has no choice but to hound him down. 

When Dean drags himself to Castiel home once again, it's no surprise when he finds the white hut devoid of any sign of life. 

The glass doors are locked, no movement inside, not even from the bedroom. Ten minutes has passed since Dean first popped up on the pine patio, so he highly doubts that the man is hiding out in the bathroom. There's no key under the doormat, either. 

What worries him most, however, is the tiny segment of a glass bottle he can see on the very edge of the kitchen counter. There's a shot glass sat next to it, and the sight makes Dean's gut twist into knots; thinking of Cas out there, a harm to himself as the sun begins descending into the water - it panics him like nothing else, and he can feel his chest tighten at the mere thought. 

Deciding the house is a lost cause, Dean keeps trailing down the beach, footsteps leaving a dotted path that gets claimed by the tide within minutes, pocketing the odd stone here and there. The orange disk of the sun hangs low in the sky, not quite sunset yet, no, but at a point where the its dying breath casts a burning orange glow over everything, turning the sand golden and the ocean white as it reflects the light back, a little hello to the molten sphere above. 

Dean wonders if Cas is watching the sun sink. Alone. 

One mug and no pictures. 

Dean keeps walking. 

\--- 

There's a glob of moss green paint on the sand. 

It's prescence is only discovered because Dean steps in it. Green covers his big toe, and he looks up, eyes squinted against the dimming sun, and that's when he sees him. 

Blackened, the silhouette of Castiel crouched on the shoreline sits, stark, against a bright orange backdrop. His easel and the side profile of his face are cast into angled, cloth-like shapes, as though they've been cut, and only the black bulk of his shirt-covered arm connects him to his canvas, creating a shadowed loop of human-easel. A leg, Dean notices with a fond smile, is stretched out in front of Cas, toes up and heel down, just brushing the gentle pull of the water. Relaxed. Uninterrupted. 

Fucking _breathtaking._

Fear, or what might be the desire to let Castiel keep his peace, roots Dean where he stands in the sand, his hands shoved into the pockets of his rolled-up jeans, heart thudding out of time with the rest of him. 

Seeing this, it's easy to imagine that Castiel is unbroken. That he's simply a man on a beach in California, one who likes to paint and read, one who's content with life. But Dean's seen the turbulence underneath, felt Castiel clutch at him, shaking, desperate to hold on, and Dean knows that if he doesn't walk up there right now, Castiel will be alone for the rest of his life. He might find a guy, or a girl, settle down - but he won't be happy. There'll be a warm body to clutch at night, maybe even someone he loves deeply - but there won't be a connection there, won't be a shared understanding. The connection between them, _Dean and Cas_ , will be missing - a connection like lighting and fire and every other destructive force of nature rolled into one. That only happens once in a lifetime, and Dean refuses to let Cas give that up. 

He goes. 

\--- 

"Hey, Cas." 

The brush doesn't snap this time, thank God, but Castiel's shoulders do lock, and his hand freezes where it hovers above the canvas. 

"What are you doing here." He states - it's not a question, more like an accusation. Dean can hear the unspoken _I told you to leave, you shouldn't be here_ as clear as a bell, ringing in his head, threatening to create another migraine. 

"Came to talk." Dean shrugs, even though Castiel can't see him, rolling up and sitting beside the other man, front to the ocean, eyes in the distance. Castiel's very prescence seems to deflect Dean's prying eyes, so Dean keeps his gaze trained on a nearby group of clouds instead. 

"About what?" Cas' voice grinds down, low and flat, like when a cat growls at a threat, hair raising and ears flattening. Dean takes out one of his stones, turning it between his hands, watching the smoothed-over grey shimmer of it as it passes through his fingers. He flings it into the ocean, and sighs. 

"Everything Gabriel told me." 

Castiel freezes up, fight coiling up around the muscles in belying his spine, but Dean cuts in before any defensive words can make their way between them. 

"Y'know, I think Oscar Wilde was onto somethin'." He says, drawing his knees up to his chest. He feels vulnerable, cracked open like a damn chestnut. "Every man kills the thing he loves. Eventually, anyways." 

"Dean -" 

"So why ain't you cold yet, Cas?" Dean looks - finally, _finally_ lets himself - and he gets no warning when a pair of warm arms wrap around him him, knocking him clean onto the wet sand as they tumble to the ground in a mess of tight, clutching limbs. 

"You better mean it." Castiel whispers into his neck, "Don't just do this because you feel like you have to, Dean, I can't do tha -" 

"I love you, Cas." Dean states, simple and quiet, into Cas' hair. Seasalt and citrus. Always ocean scented, no matter what shampoo he uses. "I'm not gonna say it again." 

Castiel pulls himself up, and _this_ \- this is the dramatic part; the part where they do the meaningful smooch and the waves crash around them as they kiss on the sand and the sun sets behind them, and it's all romantic and shit - but there's this massive green smudge decorating Castiel's nose, and Dean _cackles_. 

Castiel looks _insulted_. Dean laughs even harder. 

"You're an asshole." 

"God I love you." Dean laughs again, and he tugs this ridiculous juxtaposition of a man down into a kiss, regardless of paint - they're both smiling, so there's too much teeth, accompanied by the slight tang of alcohol - not too much at all. There's itchy sand coating the both of them, and the water is so damn frigid on Dean's heels that it makes his skin prickle and goosebumps rise over his arms. 

Dean wouldn't have it any other way. 

**XIII** ****

The night settles around the house like a blanket, and Dean pulls himself quietly from Cas' side. Making sure the duvet is fitted snug around the slow rise-fall of Castiel's shoulders, he pads through the house on quiet feet, passing the newest canvas (a moss green, intricate close-up of his own eyes, staring at him as he walks) and pushing open the glass doors, seating himself on the edge of the patio, toes digging miniature tunnels in the sand below. 

A breath fills him up, sea-scented and huge, and he let's it all out at once as he looks up at the stars, twinkling sparks in the sky, as if someone had poked holes in the universe to let the light pour through, or some giant kid decided it'd be funny to put a strainer around the world. Dean's hands fold together on his lap. 

"Hey dad." He starts, unsure - he never prays, hasn't done since he was a small child, only started again after John's death. Makes him feel connected, somehow. "Pretty weird, this, huh?" The stars twinkle at him, encouraging, "Bet you've seen all the crazy crap that's been going on right now. Lemme tell you, it's been one hell of a ride." He thinks of the house behind him, of the man sleeping within its walls, and his heart swells. "But even if I could, I wouldn't change a damn thing." 

He wonders, if he were still alive, what John would think of Cas. 

"I love him so damn much, dad." He admits, shaky even to his own ears, "And I'm so fuckin' scared I'm gonna screw it up. Was it ever like this? With mom? At the start? Christ..." Maybe that's a little too sacriligous, wrapping up a blasphemy inside a prayer, but God hasn't struck him down yet. Pushing his luck once more won't hurt. "Just wish me luck, okay? Fuck, if you were here, you'd just tell me to grow some balls and carry on, wouldn't you?" 

A single stars winks at him, and he grins. 

"Thanks." He says, and then, "Uh. Fuck. How d'you end one of these things?" The words hits him with a jolt." Ah. Amen. Right, yeah, amen." 

Sheepish, he rubs the back of his neck, wondering how on earth he'd managed to become flustered before an audience of _stars_. 

"When did your father die?" 

Dean jumps where he's sat, head spinning on an axis as he turns to eye none other than Castiel, leaning at the doorway, smiling one of those fond damn smiles at him. Dean blushes right to the roots of his hair, and he turns away, at least to salvage a _part_ of what's left of his dignity. 

"Uh. Round Christmas." He admits, ignoring the creak of the patio as Castiel's solid heat settles hind him, a hairy leg settling either side of his own, a chin hookng over his shoulder. "'S'reason I ended up in the ocean, actually." 

Hands, large and welcoming, reach over to surround Dean's where they're still folded in the crease of his legs, and the taller man's body loses its rigidity, easing back into the malleable heat that surrounds him as they watch the sky together. 

"I didn't know." Castiel says, thumbs rubbing soft circles over Dean's knuckles. Then he adds, as if shocked with himself, "I never asked." 

There's a speck of guilt in there. Dean squeezes it away with his hand. "Didn't expect you to. You had enough on your own plate. Hell, _too much_ , when I added on a full-fat side-order of _Gabriel_." 

Cas huffs in agreement, nosing at Dean's neck, and they sit together in comfortable silence for a moment more. 

"What made you move up here, anyways, Cas?" Dean asks - a question he hadn't considered until now, "Never pinned you as the partying type." 

For some reason, the question makes Cas chuff out a tiny laugh against Dean's shoulder, the sound sending ripples of warmth running through Dean's veins. "A film I saw once. It showed me how beautiful this place is." He's glancing at the stars, Dean can tell just by the wistful hint edging his tone. "Oddly enough, you remind me of one of the characters. He had far more piercings, however." 

This time, it's Dean's turn to laugh, because Cas obviously hasn't seen the little hole at the edge of Dean's left eyebrow yet. Being drunk and eighteen is a great way to get scars you won't ever remember wanting. 

"You see," Castiel starts up again, voice quiet and soft, "This -" he brushes a palm down Dean's arm, "- is what I saw in you from the start. A light." 

They'd talked about that time, about what Gabe had told Dean, and it still managed to freak Dean the fuck out. The way Castiel touched him - like a starved man finally served a meal long coming, desperate and reverent and unbelieving. Dean can't linger on it too long, because it'll push his brain over the waterfall and into a deep pool of freakout, and he never wants this tranquility to end. 

"Were you high?" He quips instead of giving voice to his thoughts, loving the low chuckle he gets in return, vibrating through his spine and turning his mind to syrup. 

"Maybe. But that doesn't matter. I was _right_." He lays a kiss at the juncture of Dean's neck and shoulder, leaving a tingle in his wake. "There's been good in you from the start, Dean Winchester - you just had to find it first." 

Dean's eyes slip closed as Cas mouths at his shoulder, humming in approval. "Took me long enough." He murmurs, drunk on the insane feeling that is _Castiel_. 

"Yes. But we got here in the end." Castiel says, "That's all I care about." 

"Me too, Cas." Dean says. There's so much shit still between them, so much still to fix an make right. And they have all the time in the world. He leans back, and closes his eyes. "Me too." 


End file.
